


Spirograph

by ApolloAttraction



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drug Abuse, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Minor Character Death, Misogyny, Multi, Multiple Points of View, Polyamory, References to Suicide, Slow Burn, Violence, references to prior abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-04-23 07:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14327964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApolloAttraction/pseuds/ApolloAttraction
Summary: People live their lives in circles, constantly moving through the same cycles over and over. In Henrietta, Virginia, they're making a change: Joseph Kavinsky does not die on the Fourth of July.Ronan makes a deal with Kavinsky to protect the ley line. A relationship starts to build between them as they struggle to uphold the deal, and Ronan begins to wonder if there's a chance that it could survive both the quest to find Glendower and their own self-destructive tendencies.Adam has always known what he wanted and how to get it. As the quest for Glendower becomes more dangerous, he starts to become concerned about the rogue in their midst. As Ronan and Kavinsky become closer, Adam is caught between minding his own business and making sure that his friends and their quest are safe.Kavinsky always gets what he wants. If he can't buy it or steal it- he can make it. Until what he wants is Ronan Lynch. He's on the verge of making some very bad decisions when he get an opportunity: A deal that he can use to keep Ronan around. However, as Kavinsky tries to get Ronan to return his feelings, he realizes that he's being torn between what he's always had and what he desperately wants.





	1. Blood and Ink I

Ronan’s room has no windows. Most of the rooms in Monmouth don’t, but Ronan’s always seems darker than the rest. He stares up at the ceiling. It feels almost as if he’s closed his eyes, but he knows he hasn’t. He won’t sleep tonight. Monsters, Hornets, Revenge…there’s nothing that he could dream tonight without risking hurting someone. He brings his wrist to his mouth and chews on one of his leather bracelets. His phone buzzes on the nightstand beside the bed.

He ignores it.

There’s too much on his mind.

The Grey Man and Greenmantle and Glendower.

The phone buzzes again. Then Again. The screen lights up with each text, ruining the darkness. Finally, he’s had enough. He picks up the phone and chucks it at the wall.

It lands with a thud, but to Ronan’s surprise, it doesn’t break apart. The phone buzzes again and lights up the wall it’s lying against. The light shimmers above it and Ronan feels Noah’s presence before he actually materializes. “Ronan?” Noah says and looks down to the phone on the floor.

Ronan sits up on his bed with a huff. “Noah.”

“Are you okay?” Noah asks and kneels down to pick up the phone. At first, his hand passes through it. Then, he tries a second time and picks it up.

Ronan snorts. “I’m fine.”

Noah looks at the phone with a frown and places it on the edge of Ronan’s bed. The light fades away, but Ronan swears that he can still see Noah standing at the foot of the bed despite the pitch black room. “You should answer it,” Noah says.

Ronan rolls his eyes. “No thanks.”

Noah frowns. “You should answer him,” He wraps his arms around himself. “I’ve got a bad feeling about tomorrow.”

“A bad feeling, huh?” Ronan repeats.

Noah blurs around the edges and meets Ronan’s eyes. There’s something unnerving about his stare. “Ronan…” he starts, but he fades away without saying anything else.

A shiver runs up Ronan’s spine and he reaches for the lamp beside his bed. Noah isn’t there anymore. A sense of dread lingers in his place.

Chainsaw pokes her head through the bar of her cage and caws softly at him. He walks over to let her out. She does a loop around the room, then settles on his shoulder and rests her beak on his head. “Hey,” He says and runs a finger over her beak.

His phone buzzes again.

When he picks it up, he scowls at the name on the screen: Kavinsky.

There’s a chain of texts. Some of them are from days ago. The most recent one simply asks: _are you coming?_

 _Fuck off,_ Ronan texts with such angry taps that he’s got to go back and delete extra letters so that he doesn’t look illiterate. _I’ve got bigger things to worry about than your shitty party._

 _Oh really?_ The text comes back almost immediately, like Kavinsky had been hovering over his phone, waiting for Ronan’s reply. _Like who?_

Ronan scoffs. _Like a murderer,_ he texts back.

 _Kinky,_ Kavinsky texts back. Then, _Are you coming?_

Ronan grits his teeth. He wants to send back something along the lines of: “What part of fuck off did you not understand?” But the dread from Noah’s visit hovers over him and he feels like he might be handling a bomb. Very carefully, he texts back: _maybe._

 _Bring something_ , Kavinsky answers.

Ronan doesn’t bother texting back.

Kavinsky doesn’t send another text.

 

 

 

Ronan goes to the drag strip. Twice.

The first time he goes, he sees families eating snow cones and wandering around while nursery rhymes play over the announcement system.

It is definitely the wrong place…except Blue assures him that it isn’t, and he goes back after sunset.

The second time he pulls up, he is greeted by the sound of a car crash on top of cheers and a loud, salacious rap song. A crowd of unruly teens grind to the beat of the songs while trying not to spill drinks. He pushes past them, then into a group of older kids passing around neon-colored pills.

Ronan makes his way to the strip just in time to see a white Mitsubishi racing down the track. A tornado red Golf speeds toward it from the other end of the track. The cars are feet apart when the Golf flinches first. The driver jerks the car sideways, and the Evo T-bones the passenger side before it can get off the track. The smell of burnt rubber drifts above the crowd as Kavinsky climbs out the driver’s side window of the Evo and up on top of the car.

“Happy Fourth of July, motherfuckers,” Kavinsky yells. The crowd cheers in response and raises their solo cups in salute. “Who wants to see some shit explode?” He holds his hand above his head and snaps. A sound like a canon going off explodes over the crowd. A trail of smoke rockets into a sky and then bursts into a dizzying spiral pattern that’s bright enough to light up the entire area before it dissolves.

The crowd roars and surges forward, pushing Ronan out of the sidelines and closer to the collision. Kavinsky notices him immediately and the grin on his face is almost feral. In a second, his eyes snap to the mutilated Golf where Prokopenko has kicked open the driver’s side door. “Proko,” Kavinsky calls over the rest of the noise. “Keep the party going.”

Kavinsky hops down from the roof of the car to the hood. He keeps his eyes on Ronan as he slides off the hood with a dangerous smile. “What’d you bring?” Kavinsky asks as he steps into Ronan’s space.

Ronan stands his ground and tucks his hands into his pockets. “I didn’t bring anything.”

Kavinsky’s smile shrinks and he stares at Ronan, like he’s waiting for the punch line to a bad joke. He scowls when he realizes there isn’t one coming. “God damn it, Lynch,” he says and throws his hands into the air. “It’s not that fuckin’ hard. Booze, pills, pyrotechnics.” He knocks a fist against his temple. “You couldn’t think of _any_ thing?”

“Yea, I could have,” Ronan says sharply. “But I’m not here for that.”

Kavinsky tilts his head to the side. “What the fuck are you here for then?” he asks as a firework reflects off his shades.

Ronan looks up toward the sky as the smoke starts to clear. “I’m here to make a deal.”

Kavinsky barks a laugh, drawing Ronan’s attention back to him. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

He turns on his heel and starts to leave, but Ronan grabs his wrists. “I’m serious, K” Ronan says. “We need to talk,” his voice drops lower out of habit. “About your dreaming.”

Kavinsky turns back to him with a disinterested look. “There’s nothing to talk about.” He jerks his wrist out of Ronan’s grip.

“It’s _important_ ,” Ronan growls.

Kavinsky spins around to face him. “To _who_?” he challenges.

Ronan clenches his fists at his sides and grits his teeth. “Me.” he answers, as if it should matter when Kavinsky’s dreams are literally destroying Cabeswater.

“Yea _fucking_ right.” Kavinsky scoffs. “If you’re going to run errands for little Dick you may as well own up to it.”

“I’m not,” Ronan says forcefully. “He doesn’t even know that I’m here.”

Kavinsky’s demeanor changes as soon as the words leave Ronan’s lips. Ronan feels like he’s made a mistake. “Why didn’t you tell him?” Kavinsky asks and stares at him from behind a pair of shades that are tinted just a little too dark.

Ronan doesn’t answer.

Kavinsky rolls his head back and Ronan’s sure that he’s rolling his eyes right along with it. “Come on,” Kavinsky says when his gaze lands back on Ronan. “Let’s go for a ride.”

He turns away and starts towards one of several white Mitsubishi Evos lining the drag strip.

Ronan hesitates.

Kavinsky stops at the driver’s side of the Evo and leans against it. “Come on,” he calls impatiently. “Don’t tell me you’re scared, princess.”

“Fuck you,” Ronan replies indignantly and makes his way to the car. 

 

The lights of the party disappear behind them and Kavinsky passes up the turn that leads to the interstate. He rolls down the windows as he turns the Evo onto a back road leading into the woods. The hot, humid air whips through the car and fills the interior with the smell of damp earth and honeysuckle. Ronan doesn’t ask where they’re going. He doesn’t think that Kavinsky would tell him, anyway.

The Evo’s tires have trouble staying on the asphalt of the tiny road. The car shakes and rattles when they dip off the sides, spraying twigs and mud behind it as Kavinsky pulls it back onto the road. Some of the curves are sharp. Some of them seem like they’ll never end. Kavinsky presses the gas every time that he takes a new one and Ronan can feel him climbing up the gears as they climb up the foothills of a mountain. First. Second. Third.

Kavinsky misses fourth. Ronan rolls his eyes hard.  

The tree line breaks as Kavinsky reaches the end of the latest curve. The moonlight douses them in a hazy blue light and Kavinsky starts to climb up the gears again. His foot is like lead on the gas pedal. Ronan looks to the gearshift as Kavinsky hits third gear. When he successfully gets into fourth, Ronan starts to wonder if this might be a dream. Kavinsky keeps shifting- up and up through an impossible number of gears. _What if everything’s a dream?_ Ronan thinks to himself and the thought is electric.

His stomach drops as they hit a bump and the Evo sails above the ground. It hits with a rattle and thump when it finds the ground again. Kavinsky tilts his head back and laughs as he loses control of the car. The wheels dip off the side of the road and skid across the edge of a muddy ditch. Kavinsky pulls the car back onto the road just in time to miss spearing the car on a solitary guardrail. Still, he over corrects and the tires skid to the other side of the road and the car scrapes against a wall of rock.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Ronan yells once Kavinsky’s got the Evo centered back on the road. Part of him- a part that sounds an awful lot like Gansey- wants to tell him to slow the _heck_ down and pay attention. Another part- a part that’s hollow and anxious and burning, always burning- wants him to do it again. Adrenaline rises up in his veins and his heart beats faster. He starts to laugh. He tilts his head back against the head rest and the laugh comes out loud and almost happy.

Kavinsky seems just as startled as Ronan by the sound. He looks over to Ronan and his foot eases of the gas pedal for a second before he grins and stomps back down on it. They hit a curve as Kavinsky starts climbing through the gears. Up. Up. Up. Miss. “Fuck,” Kavinsky says and scowls down at the gearshift.

The car tries to go off the side of the road again, and this time there’s no guardrail to stop them from tumbling down the foothills. Kavinsky jerks the wheel hard and swerves across the road. His shades go flying into the passenger floorboard. Ronan slams up against the passenger door. Kavinsky tries to get the car back into gear and nearly sends them into the side of the mountain again.

“Holy shit,” Ronan says and bumps Kavinsky’s hand off the gearshift as he pulls them back onto the road. “Learn to multitask, jackass.” Kavinsky looks toward him with his eyebrows raised and Ronan bears his teeth. “Watch the road!”

He turns back to the winding road in front of them and pulls a few turns while Ronan shifts for him. The turns are slower and more controlled. Ronan notices Kavinsky’s eyes sliding away from the road to his hand on the gear shift. He expects Kavinsky to make a joke about how Ronan handles it, but it never comes.

One curve turns to another. The car slows down as the asphalt gives way to gravel. They pull up to the edge of a lake and park. Kavinsky pulls out a pack of cigarettes and lights one.

A firework goes up on the shore across from them and lights up the water. When the light fades out, the debris hits the lake, making violent, rippling waves. The faint sound of music drifts over to them.

“Is that the party?” Ronan asks.

Kavinsky doesn’t answer. Another firework goes up as he inhales and when it bursts into vibrant blues and purples, its shadows look like bruises across Kavinsky’s skin. The flares fade away and he breathes slow, mesmerizing circles of smoke out the window as Ronan watches. “What do I get?”

Ronan startles. “What?”

Kavinsky rolls his eyes and tilts his head back toward Ronan. “If I stop dreaming, what do I get?”

Ronan doesn’t know what to offer. Instead of throwing something out to be shot down, he narrows his eyes at Kavinsky and asks a very dangerous question: “What do you _want_?”

Kavinsky presses the cigarette to his lips and hums as he inhales. The glow of the cherry illuminates his face and Ronan notices Kavinsky’s eyes sliding over him. He exhales and his gaze lingers on Ronan’s hand where it’s still wrapped around the gearshift. His fingers twitch.

 _Oh_ , Ronan thinks as Kavinsky smirks.

Kavinsky leans in to kiss him and Ronan pulls away.

“No,” Ronan says firmly as he turns away. “Not me.”

Kavinsky slams his body back into the driver’s seat with an angry growl. “Third better be giving you handies every day for all your fidelity.”

Ronan turns back to glare at him. “It’s not like that with us.”

“Then what is it?” Kavinsky asks sharply. “And don’t give me any crap about not being into guys.” his voice turns low and dangerous. “Anyone could see _that_ isn’t true.”

Ronan stays silent.

Kavinsky hits his hand against the side of the door. “Then what the _fuck_ is it, Lynch?”

“It’s _you_ ,” Ronan snarls in response.

Kavinsky tilts his head back against the headrest and lets out a bitter laugh. “Oh, _fuck you_ ,” he spits. At first it seems like that’s all the response that Ronan’s going to get, but then Kavinsky grabs angrily at the door handle and forces it open. “You know,” he growls. “Third might have you convinced that you’re all above _this_.” He gestures sharply around himself. “But you’d be just the same if Third wasn’t covering for your ass every time you fucked up.” He slams the car door and throws up both his middle fingers at Ronan. “So, you know what? Fuck you and those cocksucking assholes that you call friends!”

Kavinsky looks to Ronan for a reaction, some sort of response that he can feed off of. When Ronan doesn’t give him one, Kavinsky throws his hands up and shouts. “God _fucking_ Damn it!” and kicks the side of the car hard enough to dent the door. He storms off to the edge of the water and kicks the gravel. It flies into the air and crashes into the water, sending ripples out to meet the debris from the party.

Ronan stays in the car, watching the tension in Kavinsky’s shoulders as he kicks at the edge of the lake like a child throwing a tantrum. He stills for a moment, then picks up a large rock and chucks it at the Evo. It hits the front window and a cracks break across it like a spider web. He flips Ronan off again before he picks up another rock and chucks it at the lake.

Eventually, the tension fades out of Kavinsky’s shoulders and Ronan gets out of the car. He walks up beside Kavinsky and stands there in silence as he watches him chuck stones across the river. “I wouldn’t be like you,” Ronan says, finally.

Kavinsky looks to him and rolls his eyes. “Sure,” he scoffs. “You’d be just fine.”

Ronan tries not to get angry. It doesn’t work, but he keeps himself from yelling. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

Kavinsky looks at him and his eye twitches. “What the fuck do you want, Lynch?”

“Stop dreaming,” Ronan says plainly.

Kavinsky chuckles and shakes his head. “That’s not gonna happen.”

Ronan takes a breath. “You don’t know the damage you’re doing.”

“Yea, and I don’t care,” Kavinsky says sharply as he turns back to the lake and sends a stone skipping across it.

“K-“ Ronan says harshly as frustration creeps into his voice.

Kavinsky chucks another rock. “Just shut the hell up.”

Ronan grits his teeth, “Kavinsky, you’re-“

“I don’t care!” Kavinsky shouts, dropping the rocks that he’s holding. “Would _you_ stop? No! So shut the fuck up and stop trying to make me care.”

Ronan crosses his arms over his chest. “I _would_.” He says defiantly.

“Then why _don’t_ you?” Kavinsky says.

Ronan’s brow furrows. “Why would I? I’m not the one who’s-”

Kavinsky barks a laugh. “That’s what I thought!”

“Is that what you want?” Ronan pushes.

“Maybe it is,” Kavinsky pushes back.

“Just fucking forget it,” Ronan says and starts stomping back to the car.

“Ronan,” Kavinsky yells. “That’s a deal I’ll make.”

Ronan stops in his tracks and it takes him a moment to convince himself to turn around. “And you’ll stick to that? I don’t buy it.”

“You want to bet?” Kavinsky asks with a lopsided grin.

Ronan doesn’t get it. What could Kavinsky possibly get from a deal like that? Still…it would solve his problem. “Deal,” he finally says. “But I swear, if I catch you-“

“Yea, yea, yea,” Kavinsky interrupts with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Threaten me later.” He sounds like he that he might actually like that, and he grins like a predator.

“Kavinsky,” Ronan starts.

“Catch!” Kavinsky says and tosses something to Ronan.

At first, Ronan thinks it’s a rock and he’s ready to flinch away. Then, he hears a jangle as it flies through the air and he reaches out to catch it. Ronan stares down at his hand in confusion. Car keys? “What?” He asks. “Want me to show you how to hit fourth gear?” When he looks back up, he sees Kavinsky taking off his shirt.

“Drive back.” Kavinsky orders as he drops the white tank top to the ground. “I’m going to swim.”

Something explodes across the water in a ball of fire and Ronan thinks that Kavinsky’s _got_ to be kidding. “You’re crazy,” Ronan says.

“I’ve _got_ to be,” Kavinsky says and walks into the water.

Ronan shakes his head in disbelief. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters to himself.

Kavinsky is waist-deep in the muddy water when Ronan starts the car and pulls away.

On the 5th, Ronan will hear that Kavinsky rose from the water and made a freshman piss himself, but he won’t stay at the party long enough to see that.

No, he’s got to go tell Gansey that he’s fixed the ley-line issue and figure out exactly what Kavinsky gets out of this deal.


	2. Blood and Ink II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kavinsky calls Ronan out to the Fair Grounds.

Ronan finds out what Kavinsky gets out of the deal within days. It’s blackmail, of course.

 _Me and the boys are at the fairgrounds._ Kavinsky texts. Another text follows on its heels. _You should come. It’s pretty boring here. I’m starting to feel sleepy._

Ronan makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat and grabs his keys.

“Where are you going?” Gansey asks from the middle of the ruins of Paper Henrietta. He’s got a bottle of glue in one hand and what used to be the library in the other. There are four new boxes of family sized Cheerios sitting to his right. Ronan knew that Gansey had taken the loss of his replica hard, but he hoped that he didn’t eat himself into a food coma trying to fix it.

“Out,” Ronan answers. Ronan had told Gansey that he’d fixed their Kavinsky-related problems, but he didn’t tell him about the deal. At the time, he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now that it had…he still didn’t want to tell Gansey about it. He probably wouldn’t be surprised at the blackmail, anyway. “I’ll be back later.”

Gansey tenses up. “It’s a little early for racing.” He tries to say it lightly, but it comes out strained.

“I’m not going out to race,” Ronan says.

That doesn’t seem to soothe Gansey, but he doesn’t ask anymore questions, so Ronan leaves.

He pulls up to the fairgrounds just as a gunshot rings out. The loud laughter that follows it makes Ronan cringe. “You gave them a gun?” Ronan asks as he walks up to where Kavinsky is sitting on his Evo like a king on a throne.

“Welcome to the wild west, Honey,” Kavinsky says and pats the hood of the car next to where he sits.

Before Ronan can grit out a reply, another gunshot rings out.

“I think a got a bird!” one of the others screams and turns toward Kavinsky with a grin. Ronan recognizes him from school. A thin, short guy with hair that looked like he was going for _scene_ and missed so badly that he landed at _Justin Bieber_ instead: _Swan_.

“Whatever,” one of the others says. Ronan recognizes him, too: Skov. “You didn’t get no fucking bird.”

“Come on,” Prokopenko says. “Pass the gun here and I’ll show you how to _really_ shoot.” His lopsided grin is sharp like Kavinsky’s and Ronan wonders- not for the first time- if Kavinsky really _did_ make him.

Jiang is the first one to notice Ronan. He lets out a low whistle and beams at Kavinsky. “Holy shit,” he says. “How’d you get the prince of piss himself to grace us with his presence?”

Ronan grimaces at him.

Kavinsky laughs. “It’s a little deal we have.” He gives Jiang a shit-eating grin as Prokopenko cracks off a shot.

Ronan wants to punch Kavinsky in the mouth and leave some gaps in his grin.

Jiang takes the gun from Prokopenko.

“Watch this,” Kavinsky says. “Everybody else is a shit shot, but Jiang’s pretty good.”

“Oh fuck you,” Swan calls and throws up a middle finger.

“Jump in line, bitch,” Kavinsky pops off.

“Kavinsky,” Ronan says sharply, his brow furrowed in annoyance. He thinks to threaten Kavinsky, but settles on.  “This is a waste of time.”

Kavinsky turns a tight-lipped smile toward him and pats the open spot beside him again. “Sit.”

“No.” Ronan crosses his arms over his chest.

“Whatever you prissy bitch,” Kavinsky snorts. “You probably _can’t_ sit anyway with that stick so far up your ass.”

Another gunshot rings out and Jiang passes the gun to Skov.

“Hey, Lynch,” Skov says and gestures at them with the gun. “You shoot?” Skov turns the gun so that he’s holding it by the barrel and walks up to the Evo. He doesn’t seem to notice Kavinsky’s icy glare as he holds the gun out to Ronan. “Bet you a grand that you can’t hit the mailbox from here.”

A grand was nothing to any of them.

Ronan looks from the gun to the mailbox propped up on the other side of the fairgrounds. He’s about to tell Skov to fuck off when Kavinsky gives him a smug look. “Come on, Lynch, don’t be a pussy.”

Ronan snatches the gun from Skov. He looks down at the gun and bounces it in his hand, feeling its weight. It’s a revolver with smoothly polished metal except for a gritty line on the barrel where the serial has been grated away. Ronan looks over his shoulder at Kavinsky and sees him smirking. This gun doesn’t have the flighty, weightless feel of the Dreamkiller Kavinsky had shown him. It has heft and recoil. This one is _real_.

Ronan turns back to the mailbox and squares his shoulders. He lines up the shot and squeezes the trigger.

“Holy Shit!” Prokopenko yells from his position ten feet from the mailbox.

“Did he hit it?” Skov yells back.

“A little fucking warning-“ Proko starts, and his face is purple with rage.

“You didn’t die!” Kavinsky cuts him off.

The anger on Prokopenko’s face fades to mild irritation. “Jackass!”

“Did he _hit_ it?” Skov asks again.

“Yea, he fucking hit it.” Prokopenko bellows.

“Damn it.” Skov swears and walks up to Ronan. “Here.” He holds out a little black credit card. “The limit’s a thousand so don’t try to go over it.”

Ronan takes the card with a smirk.

A thousand dollars means nothing to any of them.

A bet, though?

It’s always a point of pride to win a bet.

Hours pass.

Every time Ronan takes the gun, Kavinsky smirks. “Are you having fun, Lynch?” he asks when the sun starts to dip below the horizon.

Ronan doesn’t answer as he passes the gun to Kavinsky for the first time since he’s been there.

Kavinsky slides off the Evo and squares up to take a shot at the now-mutilated mailbox. He has some trouble with his grip- obviously used to the weightlessness of the DreamKiller- but he still hits the side of the box, putting a nice little hole through the Zero of some long-forgotten house number.

Kavinsky slips the gun to Prokopenko and climbs back onto the hood. Ronan still refuses to join him on the car, so Kavinsky shifts his position so that he’s closer to the quarter panel- closer to Ronan.

“Who taught you how to shoot?” Kavinsky asks.

“My dad.” Ronan says. “Who taught you?”

Kavinsky chuckles. “ _My_ dad.” A beat of silence passes and then Kavinsky thumps Ronan on the shoulder. “Pass me a beer,” he says.

Ronan raises an eyebrow.

“They’re in the passenger seat.” Kavinsky tells him.

He pulls one out for Kavinsky and one for himself.

“Hey,” Kavinsky says, “Who said you could have one?”

“I did.” Ronan says with a smirk and uses his teeth to pry off the cap.

Kavinsky beams at him and pulls off his cap the same way. After he takes a swig, he lets out a sharp whistle and the rest of the boys stop what they’re doing. “Bottles out and Bottoms up, boys!” he yells and they swarm to their cars.

The gun is lost somewhere in the confusion. Ronan’s glad for that. There’s no question on how disastrous it would be if they were taking _shots_ while taking shots.

Ronan stays there longer than he’d planned. He gets drunker than he should. When he sobers up enough to drive, there are groans and dirty, slurred protests from the other five boys.

“Lynch,” Kavinsky yells when Ronan finally reaches his car.

“What?” He asks and turns back to him.

Kavinsky extends his arm and holds out his hand in the shape of gun that he points on Ronan.

“Pull the fucking trigger,” Swan screams giddily.

“Shut the fuck up, meme queen,” Skov says and shoves his shoulder.

Kavinsky ignores them as he locks eyes with Ronan. “See me next week.” He pulls the trigger and beams.

Ronan slams the car door as he slides into the driver’s seat.

 

 

Adam doesn’t hear it when Ronan knocks the first time, so Ronan knocks again. “Parrish,” he calls when he gets silence again. A shadow covers up the light coming out from under the door. He hears the lock turn.

“Were you sleeping?” Ronan asks when Adam finally opens the door.

“No,” Adam sighs and shakes his head.

“Neither was I,” Ronan grins.

Adam snorts and lets him into the room. “What are you doing here?”

Ronan ignores the question and plops down onto the floor beside Adam’s bed. “Have we found another way into the cave?”

“We think so.” Adam hums. “There’s another cave on a farm a little ways outside Henrietta. At the very least, it’s on the Ley line.” He pauses to yawn as he settles back down on his bed. “We found some old newspapers that say it kills people, though.”

Ronan laughs softly. “Of course it does.”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Adam agrees with a grimace. He rubs one hand over his face. “I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.”

“Wake me up before you leave.” Ronan says with a cheeky smile.

Adam gives Ronan a flat look. For a moment, Ronan thinks that he might tell him to leave. Then, Adam’s look deflates and he says, “Give me your phone. I’ll text Gansey that you’re staying here tonight.”

“You know, you should get a phone.” Ronan says as he hands his over.

“Why?” Adam raises an eyebrow. “So I can text Gansey for you?”

“No,” Ronan says, but he doesn’t say anything else.

“My jobs can’t try to call me in if I don’t have a phone,” he says and hands the phone back once the text is sent. “It’s better this way. They can’t try to make me choose between them.”

“Huh,” Ronan says and leans back on his palms only to carefully lean off of them as he feels splinters poke at them. He knows that the money is the bigger problem, but he isn’t going to point that out. He wonders if Adam would accept a phone if he dreamed one up for him. He’s so focused on imaginary designs for Adam’s phone that he misses what Adam says. “What?”

Adam frowns at him. “I was asking where you were today.”

“You all just went over maps, right?” Ronan asks. He doesn’t want to tell him that he was with Kavinsky. He _should_ tell everyone about the deal. There’s not really anything to hide now that he knows what Kavinsky gets out of it. Still, this was never supposed to happen. Kavinsky was only ever supposed to be a face behind a steering wheel or a nose beneath his fist- he wasn’t supposed to be part of the search for Glendower. Ronan doesn’t want Kavinsky anymore involved that he already is, and that includes letting the others get involved with him.

“Yea,” Adam says. It sounds like he wants to put a ‘but’ after it, except there’s no real reason why they needed Ronan there.

No reason except that he _should_ be there, and he _would_ have been there except he needed to babysit Kavinsky and make sure that he didn’t destroy anything. He’s not going to tell that to Adam, though, and he’s glad that Adam doesn’t press the issue.

“We’re going to meet the farmer tomorrow,” Adam says with a sigh and drops a pillow onto the floor for Ronan.

“Cool.” Ronan tucks the pillow beneath his head. “Sign me up for destination Murder Cave, then.” He hears a chuckle from Adam and smiles to himself.

Adam turns off the little lamp beside his bed and shadows fill the room. Ronan’s not as restless as he usually is, but he still lets his mind wander through the day’s events. If he thinks about it long enough, he can still feel the weight of the gun in his hand. A strange nostalgia creeps over him; he hasn’t shot a gun since Declan made him leave the barns.

“Hey,” Ronan says softly, just in case Adam’s already asleep.

“What?” Adam asks and Ronan hears him shift so that his good ear is tilted toward him.

“Do you know how to shoot?” Ronan asks.

Adam scoffs at him. “I’m Southern born and Raised- of course I know how to shoot.”

His accent comes out as he says it. The words come out flat and tilted, so that of course comes out as ‘a corse.’ Ronan can’t help but smile at it. He folds his arms behind is head. “Are you any good at it?”

“Good enough,” Adam says.

“Who taught you?” Ronan asks and he half-expects Adam to say that he taught himself. He knows he’s wrong when silence stretches over where the answer should be.

Finally, Adam says, “My dad.”

The idea of Robert Parrish owning a gun- of having one in the house with Adam- makes Ronan’s stomach turn. The room feels darker and heavier. “Hey Parrish,” he says, and there’s some half-formed thought to apologize or tell Adam he’s better off now, but the words fall away when Adam’s weary voice pierces the silence.

“What, Lynch?” Adam asks.

Ronan thumbs his fist against the bed frame. “Get some sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact and full disclosure: I live in Tennessee. I grew up in a pretty rural area (there weren't too many cows, but there were definitely SOME cows). At one point I thought of adding colloquialisms and turns of phrase like "wouldn't hit a lick at a snake," "as country as corn bread," and "as busy as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest." I didn't because I remembered exactly how appalled I was at the phonetic accent the waitress uses when talking to the grey man in the book. I did, however, do something identical here with Adam's accent, so who am I to judge after all? 
> 
> I also gave the Dream Pack slight accents because, well, I could. I started writing this before I started reading anything in the fandom, and my characterizations of the Dream Pack developed pretty independently of that for a long time. I changed some things after I read some other dream pack fiction, but ultimately, I don't think they mesh completely with fanon and that made me a little nervous about posting. We will see more of them and I'll leave the readers to judge.


	3. Blood and Ink III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes the night has only shadows and nothing in them can sate you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Chapter is Brought to you By: Itch by Nothing but Thieves. The Night time after a humid, 90* day. A plot point from the books that came out of nowhere and never seemed to get resolved which I have now kidnapped for this Au.
> 
> This is a short, but necessary chapter. I'll be posting another chapter later in the week to make up for it.
> 
> Look forward to the next post: Kavinsky's pov. The dream pack again. 
> 
> Thank you everyone for all your kudos!

Gansey doesn’t look up from where he’s sitting amid the scraps of cardboard that he’d been able to salvage from the previous model Henrietta. “Jane says she has a plan.”

“What is it?” Ronan asks.

“I don’t know.” Gansey answers with a sighs.

“You don’t know?” Ronan pauses in his pacing.

Gansey doesn’t look up from where he’s carefully gluing together the county courthouse. “She hasn’t told me anything.” It feels like Gansey is deliberately avoiding meeting Ronan’s eyes as he examines a couple tubes of paint.

Ronan rolls his eyes. “What do we do if he doesn’t let us into the cave?” Frustration is starting to creep into his voice. The meeting with the farmer hadn’t gone as planned. Somehow, they hadn’t considered that someone who had watched a magical cave drive his entire family to the point of insanity and death wouldn’t be keen on letting a bunch of highschoolers go spelunking there.

“Then,” Gansey picks up a tube of paint and begins to fiddle with it, twisting the cap on and off. “Well, we…” he trails off, still anxiously turning the paint cap. “We…find another way.”

“ _This_ was the other way,” Ronan growls and shoves his hands into his pockets.

“Ronan,” Gansey starts and he sounds weary…tired…

“I’m going out,” Ronan says before Gansey can start lecturing.

Gansey frowns at him. “Be careful.”

Ronan pulls his keys from his pocket and grips them tightly as steps out Monmouth’s door, brushing past Adam on his way in.

Adam doesn’t speak as the door slams. Gansey looks up at him with a grimace and sets the paint tube aside. “Do you think he’s going to see Kavinsky again?”

Adam sits down on the floor next to Gansey. “Probably.”

Gansey pinches the bridge of his nose. “I wish he wouldn’t.”

“You can’t save him from himself,” Adam shrugs.

Gansey props his arm on the edge of the bed sitting in the middle of the room and rests his chin in the palm of his hand. “Couldn’t I at least save him from Kavinsky, then?”

Adam snorts. “That’s still a losing battle; Ronan does what he wants.”

“Does he?” Gansey purses his lips and looks past Adam to the door.

Adam picks up the county court house and examines it instead of answering. He isn’t worried about tonight. Ronan storming off to race at night is typical, even when it leads to Kavinsky. It’s when Ronan meets Kavinsky in the day time that Adam starts to wonder about the arrangement they’ve made.

 

 

 

It’s late, but the pavement is still warm from the relentless sunlight of the day. Ronan slides into the driver’s seat of his BMW and puts the key in the ignition. He’s on the main road in minutes, pressing down on the gas and working through the BMW’s gears. The wind whips into the car through the open windows and keeps the hot, humid air at bay. There’s still a burning in his chest.

His grip on the steering wheel tightens and he taps his thumb against it impatiently. The streets are quiet. He drives for another mile, then pulls off onto a side road. The road doesn’t wind, so it’s not really a back road, but there are no street lamps and the sliver of moon that cuts the sky isn’t visible above the trees. Another few miles and the road turns into a mess of potholes and overgrown plants. His tires hit gravel and he looks up at the fairgrounds.

The floodlights are off, leaving only the moon and his headlights to light the area. There’s another car already parked there with a silhouette leaning on its hood. For a moment, he thinks that it’s Kavinsky, but the figure is too tall and too broad.

Prokopenko turns toward him and flips him off.

Ronan cuts the engine and steps out of the car with both of his middle fingers up.

Prokopenko takes a drag off a cigarette. The cherry glows red and reflects in his sharp, hawkish eyes. He exhales and the cherry dims to ash. The crook of his shoulders looks harsher in the grey-black shadows of the night and Ronan gets the distinct feeling that he’s looking at someone half-made.

Prokopenko exhales his smoke in Ronan’s direction. “K’s not here tonight.”

“I wasn’t looking for him,” Ronan says sharply.

Prokopenko laughs and it’s a dark, hollow noise. “The fuck you weren’t.”

Ronan crosses his arms over his chest. “What, are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

“Sure,” Prokopenko says with a shrug and puts the cigarette to his lips again. The cherry lights his face and there’s something unnerving about the emptiness in his eyes. This time when he exhales he puts the cigarette out on the hood of the golf and flips the butt out onto the fairground. “You fucked him up, Lynch.”

Ronan narrows his eyes at Prokopenko; he knows they’re still talking about Kavinsky. “He’s always been fucked up.”

Prokopenko cocks his head to the left and eyes Ronan. It reminds him of the dirty looks that Chainsaw gives him when he’s doing something stupid. “You think so?” Prokpenko asks.

Ronan doesn’t answer.

“You’ve got him fucked up, then” Prokopenko says and runs one hand through his hair. “He’s not sleeping anymore.”

Ronan grits his teeth. “That’s not my fault.”

Prokopenko laughs and it’s a hard, cold. “What were you looking for tonight?”

Ronan tenses. Something about Prokopenko’s stare unnerves him. “Not Kavinsky.” He turns his car keys over in his hand. “And not this bullshit, either.” He makes his way back to the BMW and Prokopenko doesn’t say anything to stop him.

 

 

Ronan gets back to the main Henrietta roads and it’s like the world woke up without him. He spends hours on the road, goading farmboys into races that their underpowered Fords couldn’t possibly win. He only returns to Monmouth when the sun comes up. Even then, he only stays long enough to scrub off the smell of gasoline and change into his church clothes.

As he makes his way to the back pew, he still feels unnerved by his meeting with Prokopenko. There’s a thought gnawing at the back of his mind, and when he sees Declan he has to clench his jaw to keep from breathing life into that thought.

“Ronan?” Matthew asks as he drops into the pew between his two older brothers. “Are you okay?” His fingers twist into the tiny, curls at the base of his skull and tug on them.

Ronan feels something twist in his gut and leans forward to rest his head on the pew in front of him. “I’m fine,” he answers.

“Then sit up,” Declan answers.

Ronan barely manages to keep from swearing at him. He stays there with his head against the pew until the Father steps up to the podium. They fall silent as he starts the sermon, and when it’s time to go to the altar, Ronan drops to his knees and asks penance for something he isn’t even sure he’s done yet.


	4. Blood and Ink IV

The screen flashes as it counts down. “3, 2, 1!” the cartoon woman yells, jumping up and jiggling her tits with every number. “Go!”

Kavinsky’s thumb is lazy on the controller’s joystick. He’s not got enough energy to focus on the turns of the video game’s track. He knows he’s not going to win, so he doesn’t even try to outpace his boys’ cars. Instead, he slams his car into the nearest one.

“What the hell?” Skov shrieks and tries to pull his little racer back onto the track.

Swan snickers and slams his car into Skov’s as soon as it’s back on the track.

“Don’t tag-team me,” Skov complains and smacks his car into Swan’s. “Not on the videogame, at least,” he adds with a wink towards Swan.

Skov takes his eyes off of the game just long enough that he doesn’t notice Jiang slowing down so that he can knock his car off the track. Skov’s car careens into one of the pixilated lakes surrounding the track. “Oh no!” The cartoon woman declares as Skov’s part of the screen darkens; his car is sunk and he’s disqualified from the current race.

“Oh, come on,” Skov says and points his controller at Jiang accusingly. “What was that for?”

“For acting like a fag,” Jiang says and sticks his tongue out. 

“Don’t be a dick, Jiang,” Swan says playfully and slams his car into Jiang’s. “You might get bit.”

“What? You biting dicks, now?” Jiang asks and pushes his car back against Swan’s. “No wonder no one wants a blowjob from you.”

“Guys,” Proko says and leans back in his chair. “It’s a racing game, not a demolition derby.”

There’s a moment of silence, then Kavinsky asks, “Hey, Proko, what lap are you on?”

Proko smirks.

“Oh, motherfucker,” Skov yells, “He’s on the third one!”

Jiang grunts, “Damn it,” and turns his attention back to making laps instead.

“He’s too far ahead!” Swan says as his car crosses the start line and completes its first lap.

Kavinsky smirks. “Is he?” He reaches over to where Proko sits beside him and runs his hand over the controller, making Proko’s car skid over the track.

Proko tries to jerk the controller away from him, “C’mon, K, stop it!”

Kavinsky leans over him and gets one hand wrapped around the controller. “C’mon, Proko,” he mocks. “Can’t you drive like this?”

“Oh, fuck it,” Proko huffs and drops his controller. “I’ll use your car,” he smirks and reaches past Kavinsky to grab the forgotten controller.

“Too late,” Swan chirps as his car glides across the finish line. The screen darkens and the cartoon woman declares “We have a winner!” before a replay of Swan’s race lights the screen back up.

Jiang turns his head sharply to look at Swan. “What the fuck; how’d you pass me?”

“Like that!” Swan says happily and points to the screen where his car is going off the track and then glitching back onto it a few feet ahead of Jiang’s car.

“You’re a goddamned cheater!” Jiang yells.

“Hey,” Skov says, “You don’t get to talk about cheating after pushing my car off the track.”

Swan grins, “Skov’s got a point!”                 

“Hey,” Jiang points a finger at Kavinsky. “ _He_ started it.”

Proko rolls his eyes. “Yea, but we knew K was a cheater already, didn’t we?”

“Hey,” Kavinsky says with a shrug of his shoulders and a sly grin. “I was just playing the game.”

“It’s a _racing_ game,” Proko stresses.

“Yea,” Kavinsky says. “But if they didn’t want to knock the other cars around, they wouldn’t put it in the game, would they?”

The room erupts. They argue the point of coding in knocking at first, yelling over each other as if being the loudest made them the most right. Then they start to just argue in general.

Kavinsky grins at the chaos.

The door at the top of the stairs slams into the wall when it swings open.

“You all,” Mrs. Kavinsky screeches, “Need to quiet down.”

Amazingly, they all fall silent.

It doesn’t stop her from continuing.

“So disrespectful,” she says. “This is not your house.” Even Kavinsky recoils from the words, like they’re meant for him, too.

The door slams shut. The posters on the walls shake.

“Jesus,” Skov says, “What a bitch.”

Kavinsky throws the controller at him. “Watch your fucking mouth,” he says. “That’s my mom.”

Proko elbows Kavinsky in the side and says, “She _is_ a bitch.”

And Kavinsky has a hard time saying anything about it to him. He knows that Proko can sense the anxiety crawling just beneath Kavinsky’s skin. He’s just repeating what Kavinsky’s said before and trying to comfort him. Still, Kavinsky grabs Proko by the face and squeezes hard. “I said to watch your fucking mouth.”

“Hey, K,” Jiang sets his controller aside and snaps his fingers to get Kavinsky’s attention. “It’s almost two.”

“Fuck,” Kavinsky lets go of Proko’s face. “We’re late.”

“Who cares?” Swan asks.

Kavinsky pauses to consider the question. He starts to smirk. “How long do you think Lynch will stay there?”

“Dunno,” Swan admits. “But I bet he’s not left yet.”

Kavinsky stands from his chair. He takes a six pack from the fridge at the corner of the room and turns back to the boys. “Pick your poison and let’s head out.” 

 

 

Swan is right; Ronan hasn’t left yet.

Ronan kicks the side of the Evo as Kavinsky pulls up to him.

“Careful Princess, you’ll scuff the paint,” Kavinsky taunts and parks the car.

“That all you’re going to say?” Ronan challenges and crosses his arms over his chest.

 “Lost track of time.” Kavinsky says with a sly smirk.

“Ever heard of a fucking watch?” he growls.

“Yea and clocks, too,” Kavinsky props himself against the fender of his car. “But I prefer to think of time as a social construct.”

Ronan opens his mouth to spit an insult, but the sound of cars rattling over the gravel behind them distracts him. “Did you have to bring your _pack_?” He snarls and narrows his eyes of the convoy of cars circling them.

Kavinsky swings his door open and slides out of the car. “Where I go, they follow.”

Skov wolf-whistles at Ronan from the passenger side of Jiang’s car. “Hey, Lynch!”

Jiang gives him a mocking wave through the front window.

Swan circles them in his car and then parks beside Kavinsky. He looks very satisfied with himself as he kicks open the driver’s door; he loves being right. “Nice shirt,” he says and eyes Ronan’s fashionably old-looking band tee. “It’s very 8th grade emo-chic.” His voice is a sneer, even though his posture looks playful.

Skov comes over and elbows Swan in the side. “I bet he sucks dick to MCR.”

“MCR?” Kavinsky snorts and crosses his arms over his chest. “I bet Third doesn’t let him do it sloppy to anything but the _finest_ classics.”

“Hey, dickhead,” Ronan says sharply. “I’m not going to waste my whole damned day here; so, if all you’re going to do is circle jerk with your dogs, I’m leaving."

“Wow,” Jiang says from where he leans against the side of his car, already sipping on a beer. “Who jizzed in your cheerios today?”

Ronan points at him. “Fuck you.” He swings his arm to gesture at them all. “All of you.” He starts to walk back to his car.

 Proko grabs him by the arm. “Hey, hey; where are you going?”

Ronan jerks away from Proko. “I’m done wasting my time here.”

“Don’t be such a fucking girl, Lynch,” Kavinsky sneers. “They’re just ribbing you.”

Swan laughs. “Who knew his sensibilities were _so_ delicate?”

“Jesus Christ,” Ronan turns an icy glare on Swan. His fists clench at his sides.

Swan notices the tension in Ronan. “What? You wanna go?”

“Down, boy,” Kavinsky commands. There’s no point in a fight right now, as entertaining as it may be… “Go find something to do. Take your drink.”

Swan frowns at him. “Fine.” He opens his car door and leans in to grab a bottle of rum from the passenger seat. “Let us know when you two are done banging it out.” He flips Ronan off as he slams the door shut.

“Who said we’re coming with you?” Skov asks, even as he starts to follow Swan.

Swan turns around and opens his arms wide as he yells. “’Cuz you need three to party.”

“Hey,” Jiang says as he follows. “Got any party favors to start us off?”

Proko lingers behind.

Kavinsky meets his eyes. “What?” he asks. “Don’t wanna see what Skov sticks a bottle rocket on this time?”

Proko stays silent and looks to Ronan.

Kavinsky narrows his eyes at the look and jerks his head toward where Jiang, Skov, and Swan have gone. “Go.”

Proko huffs and leaves.

“What a guy,” Kavinsky says and leans into the open passenger window of the Evo. He pulls out two bottles of beer and holds one out to Ronan. “Here. You seem like you need a drink or five.”

Ronan stares down his nose at the bottle before he snatches it away from Kavinsky. “You’re bad enough on your own.” He nods toward where the rest of the group has gone. “Do you really need to make people hear you in stereo?”

“Oh, nut up, buttercup,” Kavinsky laughs and climbs up on the trunk of the Evo. “You didn’t mind it that much last week.”

Ronan leans against the back quarter panel furthest from Kavinsky. “Don’t kid yourself; I still think all five of you are raging tire fires.”

Kavinsky laughs. “Well we can’t all be like Dick Dick Dickie Boy, can we?” And he meets Ronan’s eyes with a sly little look. There’s a beat of silence. “You seem like a tire fire to me.”

Ronan doesn’t smile at that, but his lips twitch at the corners like he almost does. “You fucking wish.” He opens the beer and presses it to his lips.

They drink in silence for a few minutes and watch the other guys roughhouse down the way. They can’t really hear what they’re yelling, only that they _are_ yelling. And fighting. Punches are thrown and people are tackled but every now and then a laugh will chirp out above the rest of the noise.

“Guess they decided to start fight club again,” Kavinsky says with a smirk as Skov takes a punch from Jiang and Swan high-fives Proko.

Ronan scoffs. “Where did you even find these guys?”

Kavinsky hums. “First of all, they found me,” he says cockily, as though he hadn’t watched each of them for weeks and tried to make himself more enticing and palatable until they inevitably joined in his debauchery.

He points to Jiang, who’s too muscled to look agile and too short to look formidable. “He heard about one of my parties and came to have a good time. He did a backflip over a car, some real ninja shit, and I decided to keep him around.” He moves on to Skov. “Believe it or not,” he starts, and he knows it will be easy to believe because Skov is tall and imposing with broad shoulders and a crewcut, “He was strong-arming the Housewives of Henrietta High over addie. I gave him something better to sell. Increased my fun _and_ his profits.”

He hesitates for a moment, then says, “Swan’s fucked up.” He tilts his head back and finishes the rest of his beer before he continues. “He came to a party looking for something that would put him through the floor.” Swan looks the most Henrietta of any of Kavinsky’s pack with his tanned skin and choppy black hair. He was Aglionby, definitely, but Kavinsky always got the sense that he’d rather not be. “I don’t think he wanted to get back up when it wore off.”

Ronan drinks the rest of his beer and Kavinsky hands him another. “What about Prokopensky?” Ronan asks as he pops the cap off of the bottle. 

“I told you,” Kavinsky says with frown. “I made Proko.” He can feel Ronan staring at him, but he doesn’t look back.

Ronan asks, “Who was he before you made him. Who was he based on?”

“Jesus, Lynch,” Kavinsky says and tilts his head back toward the sky. “He was nobody, got it?” It’s not exactly true, but nothing Kavinsky says is ever completely true. 

Ronan leans over the quarter panel, “You made him? You just made him?” He swats Kavinsky’s arm, trying to get him to look at him.

Kavinsky’s head falls and he looks towards Ronan, his tired eyes masked by the shades on his face. “That’s what I fucking said, isn’t it?” He snaps.

“You’re shitting me,” Ronan says and his face betrays something besides anger. “A whole person? You can’t do that!”

Kavinsky laughs loud and high. “Five goddamned weeks ago you thought a car was impossible! Who are you to say what I can do?”

“A car’s not a person, jackass,” Ronan says and there’s still some level of amazement in his tone, even as he glares at Kavinsky.

Kavinsky grins. “You can ride a car, you can ride a person; I don’t see much difference.”

Ronan slams a fist down on the trunk. “Is that the only thing you think about?”

Kavinsky shrugs his shoulders; he’s getting tired of the conversation. “What else is there to think about?” Ronan opens his mouth, Kavinsky adds, “I wasn’t actually asking.”

Ronan grits his teeth and flexes his hand, probably trying to stop it from turning into a fist again. Kavinsky wishes he would.

After a tense moment where Kavinsky wonders how many teeth he’ll be leaving with, Ronan relaxes. “Does he…you know…get older?”

Kavinsky gives him an incredulous look. “What?”

Ronan takes a long drink from the beer. “I was just wondering if he’s always been this old, or if he gets older like we do...”

“I don’t fucking know, Lynch.” Kavinsky says wearily. “Why? You thinking of dreaming someone up?”

Ronan bristles. “No.”

Kavinsky tilts his head at him. “Have you _already_ dreamed someone up?”

“Drop it, K.” Ronan says sharply.

Of course, Kavinsky can’t. “Who was it? _Please_ tell me it was Third. I always knew that prick was too good to be true…”

“Shut your mouth,” Ronan says and brings the beer to his lips so violently that Kavinsky can hear the rim clink against his teeth.

“Come on, Lynch,” Kavinsky needles. “Give me a hint. What’d you do?”

Ronan pulls his keys from his pocket and starts toward the BMW. “Fuck Off, K.”

“Wait. Where are you going?” Kavinsky yells, panick creeping into his throat as Ronan turns his back on him.

Ronan turns toward him. “You got what you wanted. You got me here. You made me wait. But I don’t have to stay here and put up with your shit.”

“Oh, don’t be such a little bitch,” Kavinsky calls. “I was just ragging on you.”

“I’m done, K!” Ronan says and pulls open the door to the BMW.

“And what if I get _bored_ while you’re away?” Kavinsky asks in mock innocence. He sees Ronan tense and freeze. For a moment, he thinks he’s won.

“Then I’ll come back and kick your ass.” He says and climbs into the car.

Kavinsky glares at the car as it peels out of the fairgrounds. He wishes he hadn’t pushed so hard as he watches the tail lights disappear down the road.


	5. Blood and Ink V

It’s midnight.

Ronan hasn’t gone back to Monmouth.

His phone buzzes once. Twice.

They’re not looking for him, not yet.

Ronan used to think everyone would stop hovering over him once they found out that he hadn’t tried to kill himself. Adam and Noah don’t seem to panic as much, but Gansey still worries that he’s getting himself into trouble whenever he goes out at night…and hanging around Kavinsky and his gang doesn’t exactly help his case.

And tonight-

Ronan’s heart beats a little faster as he turns the steering wheel. His fingers are so tight on the leather that his knuckles turn white.

 _A whole person…_ he thinks and hits the brake hard so that the back tires start to lose friction and slide.

Smoke fills the air outside the car. The smell of burning rubber sticks to everything it touches. It clings to Ronan in a way that he knows is going to make Adam frown when he smells it. He brings the car through one circle and starts into another. The circles he makes are tight and controlled, but Ronan feels like a wreck.

_A whole person…_

Ronan’s chest feels tight as he thinks about Prokopenko’s empty eyes and the way he watches over Kavinsky.

He wants to think that Prokopenko reminds him _only_ of Chainsaw. He focuses on the sharp looks Chainsaw gives him and how she can always tell when he’s starting to get wound up again…but he also thinks about Matthew wringing his hands in the back pew of St. Agnes.

It’s 1am.

The parking lot is scarred with tire tracks and the air is fogged with smoke. The whole world seems unreal beneath the copper-yellow glow of the street lamps.

Ronan pulls the car to a stop beneath a lamp and puts it into park. He drops his hands from the steering wheel and isn’t surprised to see that they leave indentions behind. He picks up his phone from the passenger seat and unlocks the home page. There are three unread texts from Gansey, but his fingers hover over the contact menu instead.

He scrolls slowly through his contact list. There’s a question that’s been burning through his mind since Church. He still doesn’t know if he wants that answer, but he presses his index finger to Declan’s name anyway.

The phone’s dial tone disappears. There’s thirty seconds of silence and then Declan asks: “Do you know what time it is?”

“Yes,” Ronan answers despite his dry throat.

Declan sighs. “I’m assuming you’re not in jail, since this is your personal phone. What do you need?”

“When was Matthew born?” Ronan asks.

Declan rattlers off the date and time with a tone that suggests he might include Matthew’s social security number, too. “You haven’t missed his birthday yet.”

“I know that,” Ronan snaps and his fingers tighten on the phone. “I wouldn’t forget his birthday.”

 Declan sighs. “Ronan, what’s going on?”

“I just need to know that he was born,” Ronan says urgently. “Just tell me Mom had him in a hospital and they cut the umbilical cord; tell me he was _born_.”

Declan stays silent. When he speaks again, his voice slips into a clipped politician’s tone. “Why are you asking that question?” Ronan’s lips tighten into a frown; it’s the tone Declan uses for his best lies.

“Damn it, Declan,” Ronan yells. “Don’t lie to me. Just tell me if he’s one of mine. Tell me if I dreamt him.”

 Declan’s voice is strangely soft as he answers. “You were four.”

Ronan presses his palm to his eye until he sees spots. His voice drips venom when he asks: “When were you going to tell me?”

Declan’s mask slips. “When was I supposed to?” he challenges.

“You saw Mom- the animals- everything!” Ronan’s still yelling; it feels like he might stop breathing altogether if he tries to lower his voice. “You know what happens.”

“Yes,” Declan says firmly. “And I’ve tried to keep you out of trouble because of it, but there’s nothing else I can do, Ronan.”

Ronan leans forward and rests his head on the steering wheel. “You should have told me.” It comes out as a hoarse whisper. “Maybe _you_ can’t do anything, but I can. I’ll figure it out. I’ll dream something to fix this.”

He ends the call before Declan can say anything else and tosses the phone into the passenger seat.

It’s midnight.

Ronan hasn’t gone back to Monmouth.

His phone buzzes once. Twice.

They’re not looking for him, not yet.

Ronan used to think everyone would stop hovering over him once they found out that he hadn’t tried to kill himself. Adam and Noah don’t seem to panic as much, but Gansey still worries that he’s getting himself into trouble whenever he goes out at night…and hanging around Kavinsky and his gang doesn’t exactly help his case.

And tonight-

Ronan’s heart beats a little faster as he turns the steering wheel. His fingers are so tight on the leather that his knuckles turn white.

 _A whole person…_ he thinks and hits the brake hard so that the back tires start to lose friction and slide.

Smoke fills the air outside the car. The smell of burning rubber sticks to everything it touches. It clings to Ronan in a way that he knows is going to make Adam frown when he smells it. He brings the car through one circle and starts into another. The circles he makes are tight and controlled, but Ronan feels like a wreck.

_A whole person…_

Ronan’s chest feels tight as he thinks about Prokopenko’s empty eyes and the way he watches over Kavinsky.

He wants to think that Prokopenko reminds him _only_ of Chainsaw. He focuses on the sharp looks Chainsaw gives him and how she can always tell when he’s starting to get wound up again…but he also thinks about Matthew wringing his hands in the back pew of St. Agnes.

It’s 1am.

The parking lot is scarred with tire tracks and the air is fogged with smoke. The whole world seems unreal beneath the copper-yellow glow of the street lamps.

Ronan pulls the car to a stop beneath a lamp and puts it into park. He drops his hands from the steering wheel and isn’t surprised to see that they leave indentions behind. He picks up his phone from the passenger seat and unlocks the home page. There are three unread texts from Gansey, but his fingers hover over the contact menu instead.

He scrolls slowly through his contact list. There’s a question that’s been burning through his mind since Church. He still doesn’t know if he wants that answer, but he presses his index finger to Declan’s name anyway.

The phone’s dial tone disappears. There’s thirty seconds of silence and then Declan asks: “Do you know what time it is?”

“Yes,” Ronan answers despite his dry throat.

Declan sighs. “I’m assuming you’re not in jail, since this is your personal phone. What do you need?”

“When was Matthew born?” Ronan asks.

Declan rattlers off the date and time with a tone that suggests he might include Matthew’s social security number, too. “You haven’t missed his birthday yet.”

“I know that,” Ronan snaps and his fingers tighten on the phone. “I wouldn’t forget his birthday.”

 Declan sighs. “Ronan, what’s going on?”

“I just need to know that he was born,” Ronan says urgently. “Just tell me Mom had him in a hospital and they cut the umbilical cord; tell me he was _born_.”

Declan stays silent. When he speaks again, his voice slips into a clipped politician’s tone. “Why are you asking that question?” Ronan’s lips tighten into a frown; it’s the tone Declan uses for his best lies.

“Damn it, Declan,” Ronan yells. “Don’t lie to me. Just tell me if he’s one of mine. Tell me if I dreamt him.”

 Declan’s voice is strangely soft as he answers. “You were four.”

Ronan presses his palm to his eye until he sees spots. His voice drips venom when he asks: “When were you going to tell me?”

Declan’s mask slips. “When was I supposed to?” he challenges.

“You saw Mom- the animals- everything!” Ronan’s still yelling; it feels like he might stop breathing altogether if he tries to lower his voice. “You know what happens.”

“Yes,” Declan says firmly. “And I’ve tried to keep you out of trouble because of it, but there’s nothing else I can do, Ronan.”

Ronan leans forward and rests his head on the steering wheel. “You should have told me.” It comes out as a hoarse whisper. “Maybe _you_ can’t do anything, but I can. I’ll figure it out. I’ll dream something to fix this.”

He ends the call before Declan can say anything else and tosses the phone into the passenger seat.

 

 

 

Kavinsky has a soft spot for burning things.

He lies back in a patch of dried grass and props himself up on his elbows to watch one of his Mitsubishis catch fire. He takes a swig of the vodka beside him as he stares lovingly at the violent, flickering flames. There’s nothing like a car fire. The smell of burning gas and melting leather can brighten any day. Mitsubishi’s are the best to burn, too. They always burn brighter and longer than anything else he sets on fire. …Maybe he dreams that part into them, the same way he dreams on the knife decal…

His boys don’t appreciate the fire the same way he does. They shout and jump around it, threatening to push each other in. Skov’s got a bottle of alcohol that he keeps splashing on it, so that he can laugh when the flames catch the liquor. Jiang keeps asking “Do you dare me?”  No one’s sure what the dare is. Swan is somewhere in the dark with a baseball bat hitting the brush and looking for good things to throw on the fire. Prokopenko’s found a couple things to add…some of them screamed.

Black smoke plumes into the sky and mixes with the hot Henrietta air. It drifts high above the fairgrounds and the stench of it probably spreads over the entire city. Kavinsky isn’t surprised when he hears a car rattle over the gravel. He sticks his hand into his pocket and digs out a wad of cash to pay off whatever do-gooder cop has come to put an end to their fun.

A grin splits Kavinsky’s face when he sees a pretty, grey BMW roll to a stop next to Proko’s Golf.

Ronan Lynch is Kavinsky’s favorite burning thing.

“Back so soon?” Kavinsky calls as he stands up from the ground. “Guess you couldn’t get enough of me.” He picks up the vodka and presses it into Ronan’s hand.

 

Ronan doesn’t hesitate. He puts the vodka to his lips and tilts his head back, draining it.

 

Kavinsky lets out a low whistle. “That kind of night, huh?” he asks and puts a hand on Ronan’s shoulder.

 

Ronan jerks away from him. “Don’t touch me,” he says and the glare that goes with it is chilly enough to send a shiver down Kavinsky’s spine.

 

“What?” Kavinsky smirks and takes back the empty bottle. “Am I not touching you in the right places?”

 

“Kavinsky,” Ronan says through grit teeth.

 

It’s a warning, but Kavinsky can’t help but push. “Why don’t you show me how Third does it?”

 

Ronan Lynch’s knuckles bashing into his cheek is the first thing Kavinsky’s _felt_ in a week. He laughs hard, even as the blow sends him flat onto his ass. “Is that how he does it?” he taunts. “Do you like it rough?”

 

The car fire rages brighter and flickers over Ronan. In the light of the flames, Kavinsky can see anger and pain on Ronan’s face. He can see the scowl, the clenched jaw, and the moment that he decides to hit Kavinsky again. It only lasts for a second before, but in that moment, Kavinsky can’t look away.

 

Ronan sinks toward him with a fist raised. Kavinsky rolls before he can land the punch.

 

“Missed me,” Kavinsky says. Ronan catches himself before he falls completely, but Kavinsky kicks him in his side, knocking him over.

 

Ronan gets to his feet faster than expected, and knees him in the stomach.

 

Kavinsky doubles over with a wheeze.

 

Ronan waits.

 

Kavinsky looks up at him and snorts, “Are you seriously trying to keep this a fair fight?” He stands up and raises his hands. There’s an open bottle of liquor sitting on the hood of the Golf that catches his eye. _It would sting_ , he thinks, _if I threw it._

 

“A fair fight? With you? Fuck no,” Ronan says and follows Kavinsky’s gaze to the bottle. “But I’ll kick your ass anyway.” There’s a vicious grin on his face when Kavinsky looks back to him.

 

Kavinsky forgets about the liquor as he stares. Ronan’s on fire tonight, and _damn_ does he want to be caught in those flames. “Come on, then,” he says and holds his arms wide open, waiting for Ronan’s next move.

 

Ronan lunges forward, nothing but scalding anger, and tackles Kavinsky to the ground. Kavinsky lands with a thud and feels a knee squish his side. Ronan raises another fist and he rolls enough that it hits the ground instead of his face. Kavinsky throws a punch of his own and it lands solidly against Ronan’s shoulder. He’s not got much leverage on the ground, so he hits Ronan’s side, hard, and tries to flip them. It doesn’t work. He swings his arm wide, readying to hit Ronan’s side a second time and try again, but Ronan sees it coming and blocks it.

 

When Ronan moves to block the hit, it gives Kavinsky enough room that he can get his knee up to his chest and kick Ronan off of him. There’s enough force behind the kick that Ronan stumbles back a good foot and a half before he falls.

 

“What was that about kicking my ass?” Kavinksy says smugly. He meets Ronan halfway when he stands back up and swings hard. He hits Ronan’s side under his ribs, near his kidney. “Think that’ll bruise?” he asks as Ronan hisses in pain.

 

“Yea,” Ronan says, vicious grin still in place when he looks back up to meet Kavinsky’s eyes. He grabs Kavinsky by the shoulders and pulls him down, banging their heads together.

 

“Oh, What the fuck?!” Kavinsky’s hands shoot to his head.

 

Ronan flops back down on the ground, eyes squinted closed against the pain. “Wasn’t gonna let you hit me again,” he huffs, smirking despite the pain.

 

“What a bitch move, fuck,” Kavinsky says with one hand still pressed to his head as he kicks Ronan in the side.

 

Ronan lets out a dark little chuckle that turns into a wheeze when Kavinsky’s foot connects.

 

“Motherfucker,” Kavinsky says and stalks over to the Golf.

 

“K, wait,” Ronan says and there’s a manic laugh in his tone, “I’m still not done kicking the shit out of you.”

 

“Oh, fuck you,” Kavinsky says. “Pulling shit like that, and you still wanna square up?” He laughs a little too hard and it puts a stitch in his side.

 

Ronan props himself up onto his elbows, “I didn’t think you were looking for a fair fight.”

 

Kavinsky huffs. “Jesus Christ.” He takes the bottle off the Golf and drops down onto the ground next to Ronan. “Give me five minutes and I’ll show you.”

 

Ronan snorts, “Show me what?”

 

“How low I can go,” Kavinsky answers with a lecherous smile and holds out the bottle.

 

Ronan takes it. He gulps down half of it and passes it back. There’s still something antsy about him, but not in the same pretty, burning way that Kavinsky likes.

 

“God, you look like you need a Xanax,” Kavinsky says and finishes the rest of the bottle.

 

“Fuck off,” Ronan says and stands up.

 

“Hey,” Kavinsky says, “Where’re you going?”

 

“Take a wild guess,” Ronan answers.

 

Kavinsky scrunches his nose and rolls his eyes, “You know, Third’s a goddamned saint to put up with you.”

 

“Yea,” Ronan says sharply, “I know.”

 

“Lynch,” Kavinsky gets to his feet. “Stay here and we’ll find you something better to hit.”

 

Ronan stops and turns back to Kavinsky. “I don’t know. Seems like your face is the ideal target.”

 

Kavinsky flashes him a toothy smile. “Then stay here, and maybe we’ll go for round two.”

The flames of the burning Mitsubishi cast Ronan’s smirk into shadow. “Okay.”


	6. Ash and Sinew I

Adam looks up from his summer reading packet as Ronan inspects the window for the third time that day.

“It doesn’t open any more than that,” Adam says.

Ronan scrunches his nose and watches the hinges as he turns the round window. “How have you not had a heat stroke yet?” he asks.

Adam rolls his eyes at him and makes another note on the packet.

“Hey,” Ronan says as he moves to the nightstand. “Where’d you get this ugly ass plant.”

Adam’s eye twitches. “Mrs. Gansey gave it to me.”

“Why?” Ronan asks and carefully lifts one of its leaves.

Adam sighs. “Feng Shui,” he answers and sets the packet aside. There’s no way he’s going to get anything done with Ronan in the room.

Ronan rubs his thumb over the top of the leaf and narrows his eyes at it. “Is it real?”

“I don’t know,” Adam shrugs.

Ronan rolls his eyes and moves to poking at the stem. “Do you water it?”

Adam can’t help the smile he gets when he answers, “Sometimes.”

 “Well,” Ronan says and moves to sit on the floor by Adam’s bed. “It’s alive, so it’s got to be fake.”

“Sure,” Adam says. If it’s a fake, it’s definitely one of the high-end, hyper-realistic ones; it would have to have been hand molded and hand painted…Mrs.Gansey could afford that, of course. And anyways, Adam hadn’t exactly given the plant and in-depth probing when she gave it to him. Still, there was always the chance that it was another effect of his deal with Cabeswater.

Adam doesn’t bring that up. He knows Ronan must be thinking the same thing, but Ronan doesn’t bring it up, either.

Ronan snatches Adam’s copy of _Wuthering Heights_ off the bed. “This is the book they assigned?” He thumbs through the pages. “Bricks aren’t this thick.”

Adam isn’t surprised that Ronan hasn’t done the summer reading. “The packet isn’t much thinner,” he says and annoyance creeps into his voice. He’s had to read pages between jobs, while he’s been on break, and every morning before his day and he’s still only going to finish it _just_ in time. “You’re not going to do the assignment, are you?”

Ronan shakes his head. “No way.” His fingers run down a page toward the middle of the book and trace the edges of passages that Adam’s blocked out with no less than three different highlighters. “It’s too long and it looks boring as shit.”

“It’s got a lot of nuance.” Adam isn’t eager to defend the book, but it’s not an assignment without merit.

Ronan picks a passage and starts to read in a haughty, mocking voice: “I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when ignorant where the narrow lobbies led-“ he trails off as he reads and looks at the book in confusion. “What does that even _mean_?”

Adam suppresses a smile. “You’re reading from the middle of the scene; it makes since in context.”

Ronan huffs and sets the book back down on the bed. “So what’s the context?” he asks. “What’s it about?”

Adam picks up the book and turns it over to the back cover. Like most of the certified “timeless” novels that Aglionby assigns for summer reading, it doesn’t have a summary. “It’s something like a love story,” Adam says. His brows draw together as he studies the book, then adds. “Or maybe it’s more like a tragedy.”

Ronan scoffs. “You’re playing the whole field on that one, Parrish.”

“Well,” Adam says and runs his hand over the blue page markers sticking out the side of the book. “Healthcliff loves Catherine, but she marries someone else. There’s some deaths…it’s very Bronte.”

“Bronte?” Ronan raises an eyebrow.

“The writer,” Adam stands up from the bed and starts packing away the pens and highlighters spread across the foot of it. “We read a book by her sister for sophomore year.”

Ronan crosses his arms over the side of the bed and grins. “I didn’t read that one, either.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “Of course you didn’t.” He reaches to take the book from Ronan and frowns at the bruises on his knuckles. “What’d you do?” he asks.

Ronan looks at his hands like he’s noticing the bruises for the first time. “I don’t know,” he says and runs his right thumb over the knuckles on his left hand. They’re a deep, nasty purple and there’s tiny cuts on a few of them.

“Were you with Kavinsky?” Adam asks and it comes out like an accusation. Ronan doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to, given how guilty he looks. “Gansey’s worrying about you.”

“Tell him not to,” Ronan says and turns away from Adam with a huff.

Adam wants to say that he should tell Gansey himself.

Adam wants to add that Gansey’s got a pretty good reason, too.

And after all that, he wants to admit that he’s worrying, too.

Ronan’s always been an asshole, but when he’s with Kavinsky he’s worse.

He stays out later. He swears more. He comes back with cuts and bruises. Most of all, he comes back grinning, like he’s having the time of his life. It’s not that Adam doesn’t want to see Ronan grinning…every times he shows up at St. Agnes to sleep, there’s a split second where that smile is worth it…but then the smell of burnt rubber and liquor makes him change his mind.

“Adam?” Ronan says, breaking him out of his thoughts.

Adam shakes his head. “I have to go to work.”

“Okay,” Ronan stands up and stretches his arms over his head. “Your floor was putting splinters in my ass, anyway.”

Adam rolls his eyes at him. “I never said you had to sit on it.”

“Well I wasn’t going to stand the whole time,” he retorts.

It would be so easy to follow the teasing and gloss over Ronan’s bloody knuckles. Adam’s always been more practical than that. “Are you sleeping at Monmouth tonight?”

“Why?” Ronan asks with a cheeky smile. “Are you coming over?”

Adam shakes his head. “I’ve got work until midnight.”

Ronan nods to himself and leans against the frame of the door as Adam ties his shoes. “So, you want to know where I’m sleeping, but you’re not coming over…are you trying to say I can come over here?”

“No,” Adam says. “I’m just saying that I don’t get off work until midnight.” _There it is,_ Adam thinks wearily. _He’s starting to sound like Kavinsky, too._

 “So,” Ronan starts as Adam ushers him down the stairs, “you’re saying I can’t come over?”

Adam makes an exasperated noise. “You’re such an ass.”

Ronan walks Adam to his car and says, “It’s my specialty.”

Adam shakes his head and slides into the driver’s seat. He closes the door and leans out the window “Don’t get arrested tonight.”

“Fuck you, Parrish,” Ronan says and his voice is light like he wants to laugh.

“Seriously,” Adam says.

Ronan thumps his hand on top of Adam’s roof and smiles. “You’re going to be late.”

“No, I won’t.” Adam ducks his head to avoid getting caught up in Ronan's smile and starts the car. It sputters to life and he drives away with his eyes on the rearview mirror.

 


	7. Ash and Sinew II

The afternoon light cuts through his bedroom window and lands on Ronan’s face. He sighs and rolls from his side to his back. He can’t sleep anymore. He’s been dreaming from one day into the next day. He holds one hand up above him and blocks out the glare of the sun. He’s not sure exactly how long he’s been at the barns, but the bruises on his knuckles have started to yellow and the cuts are nearly healed.

He still can’t completely remember what happened at the fairgrounds the night that he found out about Matthew. Bits and pieces came back, though. He knows that he punched out a car window, and he’s pretty sure that he also got into a fight with Jiang. The two things might be related, but he hasn’t spent much time thinking about it. Instead, he thinks about the clearest memories- from when he started to sober up at the end of the night.

What he remembers starts with the rest of Kavinsky’s pack breaking up either to sleep or to find another party. Kavinsky didn’t leave, though.

“What’s got you so fucked up, Lynch?” Kavinsky had asked.

Ronan didn’t answer; he just stared ahead at the burned out husk of the Mitsubishi they’d set on fire. After everything that night, he could sympathize with its charred remains. He was glad that Adam and Gansey couldn’t see him now.

“Proko told me you were looking for me the other night,” Kavinsky said and passed him another beer.

Ronan drank the beer in one go, then tossed the bottle aside. “Proko’s a liar.”

“I’m not going to give you shit about it tonight.” Kavinsky shrugged. “I just wanted to let you know there’s a spare key to my place under this fat angel statue my mom keeps on the porch.”

Ronan’s brows came together in confusion. “Why?”

Kavinsky shook his head and looked away. If he weren’t wearing his shades, Ronan probably would have seen him rolling his eyes, too. “Figured you should know- just in case someone starts a trivia night based on my life or some other bull.”

Ronan leaned back on the palms of his hands and looked to the sky. It was already starting to lighten. “Sounds like a shitty game.”

“Whatever,” Kavinsky said, and if Ronan thought about it, he might decide that Kavinsky sounded put out when he said it.

They didn’t talk after that, but Kavinsky stayed until birds started chirping and Ronan was too exhausted to keep his eyes open.

                                                                                                                 

The memory fades away and Ronan flexes his fingers. A spark of pain shoots through his knuckles in response and he drops his hand back to his side. His phone vibrates across the night stand beside him. Kavinsky’s name lights up the screen.

 _Meet me at my house,_ the text reads. Ronan thinks about ignoring it; he’s not in the mood for any of the pack’s antics. Then, he thinks about Kavinsky sitting with him at the end of the night and picks up his car keys from the night stand.

 

 

 

Ronan frowns at the house in front of him. He’s been in it once before, back when he crashed the Pig, but it still feels like he’s seeing it for the first time. He had expected a McMansion, something that screamed “My teenage son has a built-in movie theater in his drug den,” but instead it is the same decadent, dignified type of structure found throughout Henrietta’s suburbs. The ordinary perfection of it makes Ronan cringe. He parks the BMW in the driveway behind Kavinsky’s Mitsubishi and the red Lexus LFA beside it.

He texts Kavinsky that he’s there. After about ten minutes, he rolls his eyes and gets out of the car. The spare key is underneath a disturbing cherub statue, just like Kavinsky had said. Ronan lets himself in and starts toward the door to the basement. The sound of breaking glass stops him in his tracks.

Ronan turns the corner toward the Kitchen and sees Kavinsky standing up against the counter, gripping it so hard his knuckles turn white. There’s a broken cup on the counter next to where Kavinsky is standing and a woman- Mrs. Kavinsky, Ronan guesses- stands a few feet away, yelling in Bulgarian. She stalks toward Kavinsky with her open hand raised and Ronan lunges forward.

“Hey!” he shouts and shoves her away from Kavinsky before she can slap him.

 She looks indignant when she regains her balance.

Kavinsky’s gaze snaps to him. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Ronan starts to reply, but Mrs. Kavinsky yells and gestures sharply to Ronan.

“Jesus Christ,” Kavinsky pushes past Ronan. “Come on, Lynch,” he yanks open the front door.

Ronan follows Kavinsky to the driveway where he walks up to the BMW. “What are you doing?” Ronan asks.

Kavinsky glares at him. “You parked behind me, so I’m waiting for you to open the Goddamned door, obviously.”

Ronan unlocks the car and slides into the front seat. “What was _that_?” he asks as he pulls out of the driveway.

“What was _what?_ ” Kavinsky spits.

Ronan side-eyes him as he turns onto the street. “Did your mom throw a glass at you?”

“Yea, she fucking did,” Kavinsky says and pulls a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “It’s a side-effect of being a bitch.”

Ronan stares at the road in front of him. “Does that happen a lot?” He remembers Kavinsky mentioning it when they were at the fairgrounds trying to dream up the Pig, but he wasn’t sure if he had believed it until then. Ronan gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. Kavinsky hadn’t even looked scared just then, only annoyed.

“Holy shit, Lynch,” Kavinsky scoffs, “I didn’t realize we were going to play twenty questions.” He puts a cigarette between his lips and flicks the lighter. It’s barely there, but Ronan notices his hands shake before the lighter goes out. 

“K-“ Ronan gives him a concerned look.

“ _What?”_ Kavinsky snaps. “What’re you going to do about it? You gonna come in and shove my mom _every_ time she goes a little physcho? Huh, Lynch?”

Ronan glances toward him. “She was going to-“

“To slap me, yea,” Kavinsky says. “I can handle it, so why don’t you mind your own fucking business, asshole.”

“Hold on a second,” Ronan says, “How the hell am _I_ the asshole for saving your ass?”

Kavinsky sits up indignantly. “I didn’t _need_ you to save me.”

Ronan pinches the bridge of his nose. He remembers Adam hiding his bruises and telling him to ignore Robert Parrish glowering out the window of his trailer with painful clarity. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters. _I have a type,_ he thinks humorlessly.

Kavinsky is still glaring at him from the passenger seat. “What? Nothing to say to that?”

“No.” Ronan’s grip on the steering wheel loosens. “Where are we going?”

“Fairgrounds, I guess,” Kavinsky says and takes a drag off the cigarette. The tremors in his hands are gone now.

 

 

Kavinsky sits in the passenger seat with his feet kicked up on the dashboard and a cigarette burning slowly between his fingers.

“What are we doing here?” Ronan asks.

“Fuck if I know,” Kavinsky answers dully.

“Kavinsky,” Ronan starts sharply.

“Oh my God,” Kavinsky says, long and drawn out. “Chill the fuck out for a second.” He flicks his cigarette out the window and watches it roll into the underbrush near the car. He’s hoping that it might catch on the dry grass and start a fire. Sadly, it doesn’t. He makes a noise of disgust and adjusts his position in the seat so that’s he’s sitting up. He pulls a green pill out of his pocket.

Ronan grabs his wrist before he can get it into his mouth. “What the hell are you doing?”

Kavinsky pulls his shades down so that he can look into Ronan’s eyes, “I think it’s pretty obvious.”

“We had a deal,” Ronan growls.

Kavinsky pulls his wrist away and closes his hand protectively around the pill. “Yea we did,” he snaps, “But it fucking sucks.”

“You’re not breaking it,” Ronan says.

It sounds like a threat.

Kavinsky wonders just how he plans on enforcing that. “Yea?”

“You’re not.” Ronan says firmly.

“You know,” Kavinsky says, voice dripping venom. “I can feel you taking things. Little things. Big Things. Surges of power, all the time.”

For a moment, Ronan looks guilty. “It’s different.”

“And you were worried about _me_ breaking the deal,” Kavinsky scoffs and turns in his seat so he can glare at Ronan. “Go ahead and explain how it’s different.”

Ronan stays silent.

“I fucking thought so,” Kavinsky answers. He presses his palm to his mouth and takes the pill.

He’s back within just a few minutes. He feels his arms stinging where the trees have lashed him and he’s brought the wounds back. More importantly, he feels the firecracker in his hand.

“That’s it?” Ronan asks, brows knitting together.

“You should see what it does,” Kavinsky grins. He pulls out his lighter, sets the tail on fire, and flicks it out the window.

When it explodes, it’s like a bomb going off. Chunks of earth and rock fly into the air. A piece of sod even lands on the car, though the fire cracker must have landed at least twenty feet away when it went off. Smoke pillows out around the explosion site, looking like a miniature mushroom cloud. When it finally clears away, there’s a crater in the ground that’s at least four feet deep. Kavinsky turns back to Ronan with a smug look on his face.

Ronan scowls at him. “Really?” he says. “See,” he crosses his arms over his chest. “ _That_ ’s how it’s different. I don’t take shit just to take it. My stuff has purpose.”

Kavinsky shakes his head. “It’s got a purpose.”

“To explode?” Ronan asks harshly.

Kavinsky looks at him and sees his hands clenched so tightly around the steering wheel that his knuckles turn white. “What’s your stuff for?” he asks.

“None of your business.” Ronan answers, and Kavinsky can see his jaw work as he grinds his teeth.

“Oh my God,” Kavinsky laughs. “Third’s got you wound so tight; how have you not gone postal yet?”

“Shut up,” Ronan says bitterly and takes his hands off the steering wheel.

“Whatever,” Kavinsky says dismissively and pulls another green pill from his pocket.

Ronan catches his wrist again. “No,” he says.

Kavinsky rolls his eyes so hard that his head rolls with them. “Not for me,” Kavinsky says. “You need to unwind.”

 

 

Ronan stares at the little green pill in Kavinsky’s hand until he feels guilty. Finally, he lets go of Kavinsky’s wrist. “No.”

Kavinsky gives him a flat look like he can’t believe Ronan’s being _this_ dumb. “Christ, Lynch,” he says. “You’re already breaking the damn deal. Fuck, I’ve broke it too, now. May as well have a little fun.” He shoves the pill in Ronan’s face.

Ronan pushes his hand away. “Fuck off.”

Kavinsky snorts and pulls the pill back to himself. “You’re such a bitch, Lynch.” He mutters and rolls the pill between his hands. “I know you want to do it.”

“You don’t know jack shit,” Ronan watches the pill in Kavinsky’s hands, tracking its movement across his palm and between his fingers.

“I know you miss it,” Kavinsky continues, like he didn’t even hear Ronan. “It’s like being God. The highest high you can have.” He looks from the pill to Ronan. “It makes you special.”

Ronan snorts. “Is that what your therapist tells you?”

Kavinsky shakes his head and smiles “Therapist? You’re a fucking riot.” He holds out the pill again, “Remember when you dreamed up the ugly ass orange piece of shit for l’il Dickie?”

Ronan’s lips twitch into a small smile against his will. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters to himself and looks out the driver side window, away from Kavinsky and the pill. “If I take the damn thing will you shut the fuck up?”

Kavinsky grins at him. “There’s only one way to find out.”

Just like last time, the pill plunges Ronan into Cabeswater as soon as he swallows it. The trees shake in suspicion, expecting Kavinsky again. “It’s just me,” he says. The shaking eases.

He walks through the forest and reaches his hand out to touch the overgrown undergrowth. Cabeswater whispers to him. It nudges him, sending visions of comfort and some suggestions for his next items. It thinks he must be there for Matthew again. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head to clear away everything that fills his head.

Instead, he latches on to what Kavinsky had said and remembers back to when they’d spent the day dreaming, trying to make the Pig. He holds out his hand and he remembers the sun and the heat. He remembers the weight of a bottle in his grasp.

When he comes out of the dream, he has that few minutes where he’s stuck just looking at himself. Kavinsky raises an eyebrow at the Molotov cocktail Ronan’s holding in his hands. “You didn’t light it this time,” he says with a grin and pats Ronan’s chest approvingly as he pries the bottle away from him.

Kavinsky steps out of the car with it and holds a lighter to the cloth stuffed in its neck. Ronan comes back to himself just in time to see Kavinsky chuck the bomb away from himself. The bottle shatters near the firecracker’s crater and flames spread across the ground at least a foot high.

Ronan gets out of the car and frowns at Kavinsky. “That was mine.”

Kavinsky looks over his shoulder and smirks. “I’ll dream you something better.”

“Like what?” Ronan asks.

Kavinsky pulls another green pill out of his pocket and Ronan wonders how many he has. “Wait and see.” He says and looks at Ronan, obviously waiting to see if he’s going to try to stop him.

Ronan rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t say anything.

Kavinsky pops the pill into his mouth and slumps against the hood of the car.

Ronan sits on the fender next to Kavinsky’s body and watches his breathing.

Minutes pass and Kavinsky stops breathing. He gasps and coughs when he splutters back to life. “Abra-ka-fucking-dabra,” he says smugly and holds up a plastic, wind up duck.

Ronan raises an incredulous eyebrow. “What is that?”

Kavinsky hands it to him. “Wind it up and watch it go,” he says with a cheeky grin.

Ronan turns the key in the duck’s side and sets it on the ground. It takes off as soon as its feet hit the dirt. Once it’s about thirty feet from them, it starts laying eggs until the key reaches its end and it falls over.

Ronan scrunches his nose. “That’s it?”

Kavinsky gives him an indignant look. “ _That’s it?_ ” he mocks. “Is that ever it?” he holds out his hand and snaps his fingers. Each one of the eggs explodes, shooting dirt and eggshell shrapnel in the air.

“Nice,” Ronan grins. He turns to look at Kavinsky he frowns when he sees him wiping blood off the inside of his forearms.

“Fucking trees.” Kavinksy says when he catches Ronan’s gaze. He wipes the blood from his hands onto his jeans and gestures to Ronan. “Top that.”

Ronan goes back under. “Cabeswater,” he starts, and the trees are still, listening. He pauses to run his hand over one of the tree trunks. He isn’t sure how to ask them to stop hurting Kavinsky. He settles on “Trust me,” and Cabewater seems to understand. It isn’t happy about it, but it will allow it for now.

Ronan comes back to himself with a rocket-shaped firework. He doesn’t tell Kavinsky about his deal with Cabeswater.  They go back and forth for hours. Each dream is more creative, more destructive. The fairgrounds before them looks like a battleground, and Ronan isn’t sure that the fires they’ve started in the brush _won’t_ become a wild fire.

“It’ll stay in the trenches,” Kavinsky assures him as he lights a cigarette. “And if it doesn’t, this town could use the news coverage.”

Ronan’s phone buzzes against his hip. He pulls it out and sees Gansey’s name light up the screen. _What are you doing? Adam says he feels the ley line struggling._

Ronan turns off the screen and puts it back into his pocket. “We’ve got to go,” he says and gets in the driver’s seat.

Kavinsky slides into the passenger seat. “What? Is Triple Dick calling you home already?”

Ronan scowls at him. “No.”

“Well, then,” Kavinsky says, “I think there’s enough juice left for one more dream.”

Ronan stares at him for a moment with his hand resting on the key in the ignition. “Okay,” he says and holds out his hand.

Kavinsky gives him another pill and says, “Dream me something great.”

When Ronan arrives in Cabewater, he feels the edges of it fraying as he walks along the line of the trees. “It’s the last thing,” he promises.

The trees whisper at him, tired and annoyed.

“Just one more thing,” he starts to form the dream. “Nothing too big. Nothing that explodes.”

The branches rustle and he says thank you.

 

 

Kavinsky is always pushing his luck.

It’s a bad habit.

Every pill that Ronan takes lets him indulge, and he’s been watching the whole time.

Now, Ronan’s asleep again with his long, dark lashes fluttering against his pale cheeks.

Kavinsky shifts so that he’s sitting on the dashboard and reaches out one hand to touch Ronan’s cheek. He slides his hand down Ronan’s cheek and traces his lips with his fingertips.

Kavinsky’s heart hammers against his chest as he plants his hand on the headrest for balance and starts to lean forward.

Ronan’s eyes snap open and a hand hits Kavinsky’s chest, keeping him in place.

“What are you doing?” Ronan asks with wide, dark eyes.

Kavinsky stays silent, though he feels like his heart is beating so loudly that Ronan must hear it. He thinks that maybe if he just presses harder…Ronan isn’t yelling or hitting or insulting him so, maybe…he starts to lean forward again and the hand against his chest pushes him back into place.

“K,” Ronan says with a frown. “Get back in your seat.”

Kavinsky’s brow furrows and he frowns at Ronan. He thinks about trying again- the third time’s a charm and all- but he moves back to the passenger seat instead.

Ronan starts the car and Kavinsky leans up against the window with a scowl.

“Here,” Ronan says.

Kavinsky turns back toward him and sees what looks like a ball of writhing black ink in his hand. “What is it?” He asks as he holds out his hand. As the ink pours out of Ronan’s hand, the sun catches on it and Kavinsky sees that it has scales.

“Her name’s Hope,” Ronan watches the snake curl around Kavinsky’s arm. “She’s yours.”

“Hope?” Kavinsky repeats skeptically. “You’re a funny guy, Lynch,” he says dryly, even as he lets the snake crawl across his shoulders.

It settles on his opposite side and he runs a finger over its nose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The point of view goes back and forth so many times in this chapter that if I had an editor they would have probably slapped me and told me to knock it off. Luckily-or unluckily, given the readers perspective- I am a one man band. So I get to show what I want and hide what I want through multiple POV shifts in a single chapter :)


	8. Ash and Sinew III

Gansey has been pacing Monmouth with a tight-lipped grimace for the last half-hour while Ronan pretends to ignore him. Every now and then, Gansey stops to look at Ronan, tilts his head like he’s looking at a particularly difficult bit of ancient runes, frowns even more, and then starts the process again.

When Adam arrives from work, Gansey sighs like he’s glad to see him.

Ronan doesn’t like this. It feels like he’s waiting for his parents in the principal’s office.

“What were you doing?” Adam asks as he drops his backpack by the door. He’s changed out of the uniform from his last job already. Ronan wonders how many changes of clothes he’d find if he looked inside the bag. He focuses on that instead of the veiled concern in Adam’s voice.

“Ronan,” Gansey says, and he doesn’t even try to hide the worry in his words. “We can’t safely go into Cabeswater if the line fluctuates.”

“I know,” Ronan says and gnaws on the leather bracelets on his wrists. “It won’t happen again.”

Adam and Gansey share a look. They obviously didn’t expect him to concede so easily. Ronan doesn’t want to talk about this, though. If he talks about dreaming with Kavinsky, he has to talk about what lead up to it… _why_ he did it. He’d have to talk about Matthew. He’d have to talk about the deal he made with Kavinsky and all its little implications. He’d have to talk about Kavinsky himself, too, and then maybe he’s have to talk about all these thoughts that Kavinsky has needled his way into as well.

Gansey’s concern seems to double. He steps closer to Ronan and lays a hand on his shoulder. “You haven’t told us how you got Kavinsky to stop dreaming.”

Ronan looks past Gansey to where Adam is standing with his hands tucked deep into the pockets of his worn-out jeans. Adam doesn’t give him a break. He holds his gaze until Ronan looks back to Gansey and says, “It doesn’t matter.”

“It _does_ ,” Gansey says and the hand on Ronan’s shoulder falls away to anxiously pick at the cuticles of the other hand. “If you’ve traded something away,” he starts slowly, choosing his words carefully. “we can find another way.”

“No,” Ronan says, but he doesn’t elaborate. He’s tired of finding other ways. Lately, It seems like every time they take a step forward in their quest that they’re stepping directly into a wall. Beyond that, he doesn’t know how to explain what he traded. When he puts it into words, it doesn’t sound like anything. At any moment, he could start dreaming again- he _did_ start dreaming again- but then, so could Kavinsky. He could walk away, if he wanted to…But he’d have to _want_ to walk away. And did he want to?

Gansey pinches the bridge of his nose, bumping his glasses out of place. “Ronan-“ he sounds frustrated.

“If you do it again,” Adam interrupts. “You need to tell us beforehand.”

Gansey nods. “Yes. It would be nice to be aware of when the ley line is going to be…in use, as it were.”

Adam shakes his head. “More than that. If we go in Cabeswater and it disappears, we don’t know if we’ll disappear with it.”

Ronan’s teeth gnash against the bracelets. “Okay.”

Adam and Gansey share an uneasy look.

“Well,” Gansey says, mostly to fill the silence. “We should give Jane a call. She wants to talk about the Dinkley farm.”

“I think she’s working at Nino’s right now,” Adam says.

Gansey turns to Ronan and offers him a smile. There’s still a tightness around his mouth where he struggles to let the situation go, but his words come out light. “Do you feel like pizza?”

Ronan grins at him. “I’m fucking starving.”

 

 

Nino’s is packed from wall to wall. From how many children are running around in the same garishly yellow and green shirts, Adam guesses that the local 4-H camp just ended. Adam, Gansey, and Ronan take a seat at their usual booth in the back and watch blue scurry around the restaurant. When she finally gets a chance to come over to their table, she’s gripping her order pad like it might be the last remains of her sanity. “Talk fast,” She says and holds up the pad. “The manager’s on the floor tonight.”

Gansey glances past her to a tall man with an impressive scowl that none of them had ever seen before. “He looks pleasant.”

“He’s usually peachy,” Blue shrugs. It’s hard to tell if she’s be sarcastic or not, and she doesn’t give anyone a chance to ask as she continues: “Did you find out what was going on with the ley line today? Orla said it kept going in and out.”

“Oh,” Gansey clears his throat. “There was some, uh, activity going on.”

Blue’s brows furrow together. “What?”

“Well, you see,” Gansey starts and glances across the table at Adam, looking uncomfortable.

“Ronan was dreaming with it.” Adam says.

“Why didn’t you just say that?” Blue asks, sounding a little exasperated and tossing a quick glance over her shoulder at the frowning manager.

Ronan sinks down in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest.

Blue glances from him to Adam and frowns. “There’s more to it, right?”

“Well, Jane,” Gansey gestures to the table behind her. “We don’t want to keep you too long and get you in trouble. You said you had news about Dinkley Farm?”

“We can go to the cave now,” She says and some of the tension leaves her shoulders.

Ronan sits up straighter. “No shit?” he raises both his eyebrows in surprise. “How’d you do that?”

“I will never reveal my secrets,” She says with a grin. “But it was grueling and back breaking work.”

“That’s wonderful, Jane,” Gansey beams at her. “We should go as soon as possible.”

“We should,” Blue agrees. “I’ll come back by when my other table leaves and we can figure out when.” She jots down their drink orders from memory and then quickly takes their food orders. As she walks away she spares another glance at Ronan and starts to worry her bottom lip. 

About twenty minutes later, the restaurant starts to clear up and she returns to their table. Given her schedule and Adam’s schedules, it takes them a good fifteen minutes to hash out the details on when they’ll be exploring the cave. Once everything is done, the boys start to leave.

“Hey,” She says and gently grabs Adam’s wrist as he turns to go. “Do you have a moment?”

Ronan and Gansey had stopped to see why Adam wasn’t following. They exchange a look that Adam doesn’t read into and Gansey says, “We can meet you outside.”

“Great,” Blue says and smiles. “It’ll be just a moment.” She starts pulling Adam toward the side door, where the employee’s smoking area was.

Blue lets go his hand once they’re outside and places both of her hands on her hips. “So,” she starts sternly. “What was actually going on this afternoon?”

Adam shrugs. “Ronan was dreaming. We think he was with Kavinsky.”

“Were they both dreaming?” She scrunches her brows together as she stares at Adam.

“We don’t know,” Adam sighs. “I’d say it doesn’t matter either way, but…”

“But why else would he do it without telling anyone?” She shifts her weight to one side and shakes her head. “He knows that it can be dangerous for the rest of us.”

Adam nods, “He said that it wouldn’t happen again.”

“That just leaves Kavinsky as the wild card.” She frowns. “Did Ronan ever tell you about the deal they made?”

“He hasn’t told us any details,” Adam tucks his hands in his pockets and looks away from her.

She doesn’t miss the change in his posture. “But you’ve got an idea, don’t you?”

Adam shrugs one shoulder and focuses on one of the neon signs in the distance. “I think Kavinsky likes him.”

Blue’s eyebrows go up in surprise. “You think he likes Ronan? Like a _Crush?_ ”

“I’m not sure. I’ve just been thinking of all the things that lead up to this. Kavinsky following us around. Kavinsky making all those forgeries and giving them to Ronan. It’s-“

“Obsessive” Blue’s eyes widen. “What do you think that means the deal is?”

Adam finally looks back to her. “The only thing I can think of is that it’s a trap either to get Ronan to like him or to get Ronan far enough from us that he doesn’t have a choice about it.”

Blue nods slowly. “Do you think it’s working? Do you think Ronan likes him back?”

Adam shifts from one foot to the other. “I don’t know.” He doesn’t want to tell her that he’s seen Ronan looking at Kavinsky the same way that Ronan sometimes looks at him. He doesn’t want to tell her because he isn’t sure what that look means, yet, but he knows that he doesn’t want to share it.

Blue gives him a look, but she only says, “I should get back inside.”

They say brief goodbyes and Adam goes to meet Gansey and Ronan. When he rounds the corner to the front of the building, he sees Ronan standing outside the pig with guilt stitched into every inch of his posture.

Adam offers to let him stay the night at St. Agnes, knowing that if he didn’t Ronan was liable to show up anyway.

Ronan doesn’t talk on the way back to Monmouth, but by the time they wind up at St.Agnes, he’s found his voice again.

 “Monday?” Ronan asks, then groans. “We really go back to school on Monday?”

“Yes,” Adam stresses as he shuffles the tarot cards. The cards bulge as he slides one hand over the other and a single card leaps out of his hands. It lands face up, showing two charcoal smudges- like smoke from a candle- twining around each other in intimate spirals. The bottom of the card says _The Lovers._

The movement catches Ronan eye and he comes to the foot of the bed to watch Adam shuffle the deck. “You know, you could market that as a skill.”

Adam hums as he picks the card up and shuffles it back into the deck. If he’d notice the slight mocking tone to Ronan’s words, he ignored it. “I don’t know any actual spreads.” He puts one hand over the other and tries to focus on the cards. Another pops out and he frowns at it. “I only really use them to talk with Cabeswater.” He leans forward to get the rogue card and another one slips out of the deck.

Ronan’s brow furrows. “Are you trying to talk to Cabeswater now?”

“No.” Adam picks up the cards that fell out of the deck and squints at them. “Persephone says I need to get more familiar with the traditional meaning of the cards, though, so I can better understand what Cabeswater means.” He slides the _Temperance_ and _The Wheel of Fortune_ cards back into the deck and finishes shuffling without any other runaway cards.

“We’re going to Foxway tomorrow, right?” Ronan asks, still hovering around the end of the bed.

Adam nods, “Blue wants to talk about plans for the cave…I think she wants to talk to us by ourselves, too.”

“About Gansey?” Ronan says solemnly.

Adam’s mouth tightens into a thin line. “I think we’re all decided on what we’re asking Glendower for, but I think she wants to talk about whether or not we should tell him.”

“No.” Ronan says firmly.   
  
Adam stands from the bed and sets the tarot deck on the nightstand. “Wouldn’t you want to know if you were going to die?”

“No,” Ronan repeats. “And he’s not going to die.”

Adam sees the tension in his shoulders as he crosses his arms over his chest. He sees the fear behind the carefully put-together defiance in his face. “Okay,” Adam says and the tension starts to leave Ronan’s shoulders. “But we should still talk about it.”

Ronan folds his arms behind his head. “We should take my car tomorrow.”

Adam tilts his head to the side. “Why don’t we just drive separate?”

“We’re going the same place from the same place,” Ronan says with a shrug. “Do you really want the Maggot to chew you out over our carbon foot-print if we take two cars?”

“I guess not,” Adam says and shoots a dubious look at where his keys sit on the nightstand.

Ronan looks pleased with himself as Adam turns off the light.


	9. Ash and Sinew IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this early because I've got a hectic week ahead of me and I just know I'll forget or be late if I don't. Plus, I really like this chapter and it makes it very difficult for me not to write meta about my own fic.
> 
> Mood Music:
> 
> "Very Cruel" by Polica  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Wh1kePvmo

Sometimes there’s just nothing to do.

The sun beats down hard on the fair grounds, roasting Kavinsky and Ronan where they lay on the hood of the Mitsubishi.

“Ugh,” Kavinsky groans as Ronan passes a beer to him. “This tastes like piss.”

Ronan’s head lolls over to look at him. “Give it back then.”

“No,” Kavinsky says defensively and chugs half the bottle. When he’s done, he grins at Ronan and licks his lips.

Ronan rolls his eyes, then closes them.

The air is heavy from the rain earlier in the day, and the eighty degree heat makes them sweat so bad that their skin sticks to the hood of the car. It makes Kavinsky feel like an egg in a frying pan. Ronan himself looks like he’s about half-cooked, too.

“It’s hot as balls,” Kavinsky says and peels himself off the hood.

Ronan lifts his head to look at him. “Are you just realizing that?”

Kavinsky throws up the finger at him. He called Ronan earlier, but he still wasn’t sure why he actually came. “It’s hot as balls,” Kavinsky repeats, “And this beer isn’t any better than the sweat dripping off _my_ balls. Why the fuck are you here Lynch?”

Ronan groans and tosses an arm over his eyes. “Nothing better to do.”

Kavinsky cocks his head at him, and the new perspective he gets from standing a few feet away sends a shiver down his spine. He’s glad that Ronan can’t see him staring. This is something he’s dreamed about more often than is healthy: Ronan Lynch, sprawled out over the hood of his car, flushed and sweaty. Of course, those dreams usually featured less clothing. Still, the slip of skin where Ronan’s muscle tee rides up over his abs is shamefully tantalizing.

Kavinsky walks back to the Mitsu and plants a hand by Ronan’s hip. There’s nothing more he wants to do than reach out and touch the fine black hairs trailing over Ronan’s stomach and underneath his waistband. “Not because I called?” Kavinsky asks, voice low and dangerous.

Ronan moves his arm and looks up at him with piercing eyes. “Not because you called,” he answers.

“Were you bored when we came here last time?” Kavinsky drags his eyes up Ronan’s body until he meets Ronan’s gaze.

“No,” Ronan answers.

Kavinsky tilts his head so he can look at Ronan over his shades. “So you came because I called?” It’s so tempting to touch. He’s close enough that he doesn’t think Ronan could stop him in time, but the look in Ronan’s eyes- like he’s a cornered animal readying to lash out- makes Kavinsky hesitate.  Suddenly, not scaring Ronan away is more important than Kavinsky taking what he wants.

Ronan props himself up on his elbows. “No,” he answers and there’s a bite behind it this time.

Kavinsky pulls away. “Whatever, Lynch,” He walks a few feet away again and finishes off the beer. He chucks the empty bottle across the fair grounds and it thumps down on the wet ground, but doesn’t shatter. He scrunches his nose in annoyance. 

He hears Ronan huff at the throw. “Kinda pathetic,” he mocks.

“Fuck you.” Kavinsky walks back to the car to get another beer. He pops the cap off on the top of the car and watches Ronan cringe as it gauges the paint. He’ll never understand that reverence for objects…like they can’t just take a nap and make a new one.

Ronan relaxes. He doesn’t lie back down or close his eyes, but he doesn’t look like he’s about to throw a punch anymore.

Kavinsky’s having trouble trying to do the same thing. He keeps thinking about when he’d gotten Ronan to bring him to the fair grounds and they’d spent forever dreaming up things to one-up each other. He still couldn’t get over the fact that Ronan didn’t hit him when he’d tried to kiss him.

“Hey,” Kavinsky says. “Last time we were here-“ The words barely leave his mouth and Ronan tenses again. Kavinsky frowns and takes a long swig of the beer before he continues. He decides to change what he was going to say: “The trees didn’t try to kill me last time.”

Ronan looks out over the fairgrounds and for a second Kavinsky thinks he’s being ignored. Then, Ronan says, “I asked them not to.”

Kavinsky’s eyebrows shoot to his hair line. “What?”

Ronan looks uncomfortable. “Sometimes Cabeswater listens to me. So, I asked it not to hurt you.”

Kavinsky moves to stand by the front quarter panel so that he can look at Ronan’s face. “Why would you do that?”

Ronan doesn’t meet his gaze. “I didn’t want you bleeding on my car.”

Kavinsky laughs at that and a grin splits his face. “You’re a goddamned liar. You’re getting soft on me, Lynch.”

Ronan scowls. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Do you think you could do it again?” Kavinsky asks and leans on the side of the car eagerly. “Could you keep them from killing me if we went in again?”

“Maybe,” Ronan shifts to look at Kavinsky. “But I’m not going to.”

Kavinsky’s face falls. “Why not?”

“Because the ley line is too fragile,” he says and crosses his arms over his chest. “We shouldn’t have done it last time.”

“Come on,” Kavinsky says and leans toward Ronan. “We don’t have anything else to do.”

“No.” Ronan pins him with a glare.

“What if we don’t take anything?” Kavinsky asks.

Ronan doesn’t look like he trusts him. “Then what’s the point?”

Kavinsky barks a laugh and slaps his shoulder. “Damn, you’re starting to sound like me!” He raises the beer bottle in salute and drinks some before he adds. “Don’t you ever dream just to dream?”

“ _I_ do.” Ronan eyes Kavinsky wearily. “I don’t think _you_ do.”

“Fair enough,” Kavinsky smiles cheekily at him. “But I’ll do it this time. I’ll even pinky promise not to take anything. You’re down for a pinky promise, right?” He holds up his little finger.

Ronan rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”

“Come on,” Kavinsky needles, his voice an obnoxious whine. “What else are we going to do?” and, honestly, Kavinsky’s got a list a mile long of things he’d like to do with Ronan, but this is what he settles on. _This_ , he thinks _is something I can get._

Ronan gives him a hard look. “If you take anything-“

Kavinsky waves a hand, “Yea, yea, you’ll put out a dream hit on me.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Ronan bristles.

Kavinsky rummages around in the pocket of his jeans and pulls out two of the little green pills. “Come on, Mr. Sandman.” He hands Ronan a pill and grins cheekily. “Let’s dream me a dream.”

Ronan takes the pills and looks to Kavinsky. “We need to take them at the same time.”

Kavinsky scrunches his nose. “We didn’t last time.”

“That was last time,” Ronan says.

 Kavinsky’s sure Ronan’s thinking about that almost-kiss. “You don’t trust me?” he barks a laugh. “That’s cool,” he smirks and puts the pill to his lips. “I don’t trust me either.”

Ronan locks eyes with Kavinsky and snorts.

They take the pills together.

They fall into Cabeswater together.

Ronan’s already standing when Kavinsky opens his eyes. “I guess it’s always going to be trees now, isn’t it?” he says with a laugh. He stands up and looks at the trees. It feels like they’re watching him, but none of them lash out. He taps his foot against the ground experimentally and no vines shoot out to wrap around his ankles. “Nice.” He says to himself.

Ronan’s attention is turned toward the trees. When Kavinsky follows his gaze, he sees a ghost between the trees. No. Not a ghost. A little kid. “What the fuck, Lynch?”

Ronan shushes him sharply. He speaks Latin and the child shakes its head. She slips between the trees and disappears. Ronan sighs. “She’s scared.”

“I’d be scared to if I was a little kid living in your dreams.” Kavinsky says.

Ronan scowls at him. “She’s always been here. I think she’s part of the leyline. Like…a physchopomp.”

“There’s something psycho about it.” Kavinsky says.

“Whatever,” Ronan says and steps toward the trees.

Kavinsky hesitates. He’s never been so open in his dreams. He’s always in and out, performing the most otherworldly B’n’E with single-minded recklessness. He decides _fuck it_ and follows Ronan into the forest.

He realizes for the first time that Cabeswater is pretty. The trees are tall with vines and lichen twisting up their trunks. The grass that brushes their ankles is lush and green like something out of a picture. The lightening bugs are the last straw. One lands on his shoulder and glows a vibrant green. It’s almost the same color as the pills they took to get there. When he looks closer, he sees that it’s not a real lightening bug. It’s more like a sphere of light with legs than an actual firefly. He presses his finger to his shoulder and lets it crawl onto it.

It’s pretty. He hates it. How many times has he been in this ridiculous forest and he’s never seen these bugs? How many times had he been lashed by these branches and never noticed the ivy wrapped around them? How many times has he been too caught up in trying to survive that he didn’t even notice what was trying to kill him?

A bitter taste fills his mouth and he shakes his hand to fling the bug away.

“You can dream something, too,” Ronan is saying, and the words make their way to Kavinsky through a haze. “Just don’t take anything.”

Kavinsky grits his teeth. He tries to focus on something to dream up- something that he won’t want to take. He comes up with more fireflies. These ones are nearly identical to the ones floating around him except when they rest their bodies are red- and when they glow, they burst into tiny balls of flame.  At first they swirl and mix with the green bugs, their flames like tiny torches in the darkness of Cabeswater. Then, they land on the trees. 

There’s a rustle of confusion as the first one glows and its flames burn the tree. Then, all of them go off at once, lighting the autumn leaves on fire and scorching the trunks of the trees. Ronan stares up at the burning branches. Kavinsky stares at his back.

 _Don’t take anything,_ his brain mocks, as if there’s anything in this forest that he wants more than Ronan Lynch. Someone like him. The only one he’s ever found. Someone who’s had the same dreams- the same _nightmares_. Things that Kavinsky couldn’t talk about with anyone else. _Don’t take anything_.

Kavinsky clenches his fists at his sides. There are vines wrapping around his ankles and digging their thorns into his skin. A branch comes down hard on Kavinsky’s shoulder and leaves a gash in it. The bugs blaze brighter.

Ronan turns to look at Kavinsky. “What are you doing?”  He demands.

“Having fun,” Kavinsky bites back. “ _Not_ taking anything.”

“Stop it, K,” Ronan says.

“Why?” Kavinsky asks and he feels another sharp lash to his shoulder. This time, the branch that hits him grazes Ronan as well and leaves a shallow cut in his face. Kavinsky watches the blood trickle from it, curving over Ronan’s cheek.

“K,” Ronan sounds a little more desperate.

Kavinsky can hear flapping in the distance, but his focus is still on the cut on Ronan’s face. He wants to dig his fingers into it and rip it open wider. He wants to wipe it away and make sure it doesn’t get infected. He wants-

He loses his breath as the dream fades out and he’s thrown back into reality like a drowned man heaving up the last of the water in his lungs. He’s on the ground, clinging to the front fender of the Mitsubishi.

“What the _fuck_ was _that_ , K?” Ronan yells.

Kavinsky looks up from where he is on the ground. The cut on Ronan’s cheek is still there, still bleeding. Kavinsky wants to drag his tongue up Ronan’s cheek and lick away the blood. “That was me,” he says, and it comes out weaker than he’d meant. He adjusts his shades on his face, but they don’t hide anything from Ronan anymore, so he ducks his head and starts to unearth the thorns buried in his legs.

Ronan makes an annoyed noise in the back of his throat and stalks away towards his BMW. Kavinsky doesn’t look up when he hears the door open. He counts the seconds until he hears the engine turn over. He never hears it. Instead, he hears footsteps crunching over dry grass as Ronan returns to him.

“Here.” Ronan says and throws a pack of wet wipes at him. “If you leave here covered in blood, the cops are going to think you killed someone.

Kavinsky narrows his eyes at the package as he opens it up and takes one out. “Why the hell do you have baby wipes in your car?”

“To wipe people’s oily fingerprints off my leather interior,” Ronan says defensively and crosses his arms over his chest.

Kavinsky snorts and runs the wipe over his shoulder. “Baby wipes in your car, kids in your dreams,” he mutters. “You may as well trade in that Beemer for a fucking sedan.”

“Shut the hell up,” Ronan says and sits down next to Kavinsky. He takes the package of wet wipes and pulls one out. He rubs away the blood crusting on his cheek.

The cut on his cheek is a tender pink without the blood. It looks delicate. Kavinsky wants to run his thumb over it and feel the swollen edges against his own skin, but he settles for dragging the a wet wipe down the wounds on his own arm so violently that new blood springs out of them.

Ronan notices, but he doesn’t say anything.

Kavinsky’s hands bawl into fists and he feels anger bubble up like bile in the back of his throat. “Why are you still here?”

“There’s nothing better to do.” Ronan answers flatly.

“Bullshit.” Kavinsky seethes.

 Ronan gives him a sharp look. “Do you _want_ me to leave?”

“I don’t _want_ you to do a damn thing.” Kavinsky spits.

“Good.” Ronan says and leans back against the fender. “Because I’m not going to do _shit_ for you again.”

Kavinsky snorts. “Whatever. Like I’d want to go back to your murder forest anyway.”

“It was defending itself,” Ronan says tersely. “You hurt it.”

“Yea,” Kavinsky spits. “The poor _trees_ and their _feelings_.”

Ronan grits his teeth. “You set them on fire. They were burning alive.”

“ _Are_ they alive?” Kavinsky challenges.

“Like me and you.” Ronan says.

Kavinsky lets out a harsh laugh. “Like me and you,” he repeats and looks over to stare at Ronan. His eyes catch on the cut again and he reaches out to touch it. Ronan flinches but he doesn’t pull away as Kavinsky presses his index finger to it and runs it gently over the length of it. The pink inside it darkens. If he presses any harder, it might bleed. “How do you know you’re alive?”

Ronan looks tired as he pulls Kavinsky’s hand away. “You didn’t have to set Cabeswater on fire. That was cruel.”

“ _I’m_ cruel,” Kavinsky says and snatches his hand back. He doesn’t want to explain that he didn’t mean to do it. He had just barely thought of the bugs when they appeared. He’d barely thought _glow_ when they burst into flames. His thoughts had scattered like jagged pieces of glass from a car wreck and before he could finish thinking something, it came to life. He didn’t know how Ronan was able to control it.

Ronan grits his teeth. “We can’t go back.”

“I told you I don’t want to go back.” Kavinsky says. He finishes wiping away the blood on himself and stares at the raw wounds on his arms. “There’s a party tonight.”

“There’s always a party.” Ronan says wearily.

“It’s not one of mine, but me and the boys are meeting at my place.” Kavinsky says and picks at an old, half-healed cut on his hand. “Are you coming?”

“Are you asking me this time or are you going to blackmail me again?” Ronan says. His voice is thin, like it’s a strain to talk to Kavinsky.

“Could I do that again? Fuck that’d be easy. I figured twice was pushing it, but if you’d still come-“ Kavinsky stops when he notices the icy glare that Ronan’s giving him. He laughs at it. “Fine. You’re invited. No Blackmail.”

Ronan doesn’t look convinced.

“So,” Kavinsky drawls. “Are you coming?”


	10. Ash and Sinew V

They stay at the fairgrounds until dusk. They hardly speak as they finish off the rest of the beer they’d brought. Once the sun starts to set, they head back to Kavinsky’s house.

The driveway is already filled up with the pack’s cars when they arrive. The Lexus LFA is conspicuously missing.

“Took you long enough to show up,” Swan calls with a grin as he kicks his feet back and forth over the side of his silk blue golf. 

Ronan rolls his eyes, remembering how they’d made him wait at the fairgrounds earlier that month.

“Did you forget where the key was?” Kavinsky asks as he starts up the cobbled pathway to the front door. “Mom’s at her _Zumba_ class, so you could have had the run of the place.”

“ _Zumba_ ,” Skov says in a mocking tone. “Is that where she meets her dealer now?”

Kavinsky laughs at that and they bumble into the house with armfuls of alcohol and little baggies, already rambunctious before they even reach the den. Kavinsky puts some rap music on the theater speakers as Skov lays out the drugs on the table in the kitchenette and Proko works on organizing the alcohol on the counter.

“Oh shit,” Swan says with glee when he notices Proko’s work. “Let me get a pic of that.” He whips out his phone and angles up a shot. “That’s going to get hella likes on my insta.”

“God you’re _so_ gay,” Prokopenko says and shoves his shoulder.

“Come on, Proko,” Swan says and throws an arm around his shoulders. “Smile for the camera. I’ll make you insta-famous.”

Proko shoves Swan and he stumbles back into the table, laughing.

“Hey, watch it,” Skov chides as he saves a few pills from rolling off the table.

Swan makes a dismissive noise, “You’d still take it if it hit the floor.” He turns around to investigate the assortment on the table. “Fuck, you’d still take it if a dog shit it out.” He opens his wallet and takes out a shiny black credit card to shape up a line of coke.

“Come on, Lynch,” Jiang says and claps him on the shoulder. “Pick your poison.”

“We’ve got pretty much any drink you could imagine,” Kavinsky says from his spot by the alcohol.

Swan raises his head and uses the back of his hand to wipe away the coke residue on his nose. “Just don’t let Jiang mix you a drink. He’ll fucking poison you, man.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Kavinsky says and picks up a dark whiskey. “Lynch only likes the straight stuff.”

The rest of the pack breaks out into laughter.

This is the part of them that Ronan hates, but he still drinks when Kavinsky puts a shot glass in his hand. He watches Kavinsky lean over the table with a dollar rolled up between his thumb and forefinger. The cuts on his arm stand out against his skin and Ronan’s stomach roils as he remembers Cabeswater burning. He goes to the counter and pours himself another drink.

It takes about fifteen minutes for everything to kick in, and when it does Kavinsky and his whole pack are bouncing off the walls. Ronan works quickly to get enough alcohol in himself to stand them.

“Fuck, guys,” Jiang says with a blissed out grin. “I’m seeing _colors_.”

“You always see colors, dumbass,” Kavinsky says and swats his shoulder.

“I’m color-blind you swizzle stick,” Jiang says with a piercing laugh.

“Swizzle stick,” Swan repeats in a daze and sits down in the theater chair next to Skov.

“Hey, Lynch,” Jiang yells, even though Ronan is less than ten feet away from him. “Take off your shirt.”

“No.” Ronan says.

Swan laughs loudly, “What are you doing, J? Trying to get K an early birthday present?”

Kavinsky throws a bag of solo cups at Swan. “Shut up, dickweed.”

“I want to see what color his tattoo is.” Jiang says and looks at Ronan imploringly.

“It’s black,” Ronan answers and takes a long drink from his glass.

“No shit?” Jiang says. “Well, damn.” He sighs.

Skov points a finger at Ronan, “Hey, how many sessions did that tat take?”

“I did it all in one,” Ronan answers.

“You’re shitting me,” Skov says.

“No fucking kidding?” Jiang says. “My roses took like four sessions and they’re way smaller.” He lifts his shirt to show a tattoo of roses and thorns along the top of his chest.

“It was supposed to take more, but,” Ronan shrugs.

“Damn,” Skov whistles. “You’ve got some pain tolerance. Mine took 30 minutes and I almost died.”

“That’s ‘cuz you’re a little bitch,” Swan says cheekily.

The group breaks out into a roar of laughter. This part of them is easier to handle. The in-jokes and teasing each other is almost familiar to him.

“Guys,” Swan says urgently, voice filled with delight. “We’ve got enough people to play circle of death.”

“ _No_ ,” Skov says sternly, but Swan’s already out of his seat rummaging through the counter drawers in the kitchenette.

“A-ha!” Swan says triumphantly and holds up a pack of playing cards. “Let’s make this pre-game fucking count.”

“ _No_ ,” the rest of the group groans, but they end up sitting in a circle around the freshly cleared off drug table anyway. Ronan’s never played. It doesn’t matter, since most of the game is spent insulting each other, arguing rules, and drinking the strongest mixed drinks that Ronan’s ever tasted as fast as they could.

“Guys,” Skov says around an hour later. “We need to head out.”

“Someone call Andy and let him know we’re on our way,” Jiang says.

They’re the least drunk of the group, but they still probably shouldn’t be driving cars.

“They know we’re coming,” swan says with a wave of his hand. “Come on,” Swan says with a grin. Let’s get to the _real_ party.”

“The real party?” Ronan repeats and his nose scrunches. He’s already had enough alcohol that standing is difficult. Even if he hadn’t, listening to them for the last hour has started to wear on him. “No.” he says simply.

“Come on, Lynch,” Kavinsky says and throws an arm around his shoulders. “I’ve seen you drink more than this; you’re _fine_.”

“Come on,” Skov says. “You don’t want to miss out on the party favors upstate.”

“They’re _almost_ as good as K’s,” Jiang says.

Kavinsky flips him the bird. “Don’t fuckin’ insult my shit like that.”

Swan smiled at him cheekily. “What shit? You ain’t got none.”

For a split second, Kavinsky looks pissed. “What would mommy say if she heard you talking like that?”

It must have been a swore spot, because Swan flinches and narrows his eyes at K. “Asshole,” He sneers.

Kavinsky grins back, looking devilish under the theater lights above them.

Prokopenko, ever loyal, smirks. “You deserved it.”

“What’d you say?” Swan asks and turns sharply toward him. “I’ll kick your ass, you big nosed motherfucker.”

“Oh, Christ,” Kavinsky says like it’s a labor. “Someone take him out of here before he gets hysterical.”

The rest of the boys snicker at that. This teasing is a little harder to swallow. It borders almost on malicious. Ronan steps back, waiting to see if it turns into a real fight or not.

Kavinsky sees Ronan move from the corner of his eye. He looks over at him and the tension between him and Swan brakes. Kavinsky nods towards Skov. “Seriously. Take them to the party.”

Skov’s eyebrows rise. “You’re not coming?

Kavinsky gestures to Ronan. “Mom’ll be pissed if I leave him here.”

“Fuck off,” Ronan rolls his eyes at him.

“So, what?” Prokopenko asks sharply. “You’re going to babysit him until he dries out?” He says it sternly, like he’s issuing a challenge.

Kavinsky shrugs, “Or until he passes out.”  If he notices the way Prokopenko squares his shoulders, he doesn’t let it show.

Prokopenko backs down. “Fine,” he says. He nods to the rest of them and stomps up the steps.

“Alright,” Skov says. “Swag mobile is leaving. We’ll take bets in the car for which one of them is going to top tonight.”

“My bet’s on K,” Swan says dutifully.

“Go suck a dick,” Kavinsky says as they file out of the room.

Swan turns around at the doorway and shoots them a cocky grin. “Do you think Ronan will let me have a turn?”

Kavinsky picks up one of the empty beer cans from the floor and chucks it at Swan, only to have it hit the frame as he leaves. “What a fucking guy,” Kavinsky says and rubs his temple like he’s got a headache.

Ronan watches him carefully as he paces the room. “So why’d you really stay behind?” he asks.

Kavinsky makes an annoyed noise and rolls his eyes. He grabs a remote from the table at the corner of the room and the theater screen flickers on.

“Racing again?” Ronan asks as he watches two cars on the screen squeal past a green light.

“I’ve got porn, too,” Kavinsky says cheekily.

Ronan gives him a disgusted look.

Kavinsky scoffs. “Don’t act like you never jack it.” He walks past Ronan to the counter and grabs a bottle of whiskey for himself. He uncaps it and takes a swig before handing it to Ronan. “You don’t need a chaser, do you?” he teases.

Ronan takes it and tilts his head back. When he pulls it away from his lips he smirks at Kavinsky and says, “Never do.”

Kavinsky looks away and takes the bottle back. Ronan can’t tell if the flush on his face is from the booze, the drugs, or maybe just embarrassment. “Fuckin’ A, Lynch,” he mumbles and takes a seat in one of the theater chairs.

Ronan finishes off the bottle of beer that he’s drinking and leaves it on the table before joining Kavinsky in the theater chairs. 

They pass the whiskey back and forth. Thirty minutes pass. Maybe an hour. It’s hard to tell, but the bottle is empty by the time Kavinsky starts to get agitated. He gets up and grabs another drink- something clear in an unlabelled glass bottle- then, just as soon as he’s sat down, he’s back up again turning the lights off. He takes his shades off and tosses them onto the table, flinching at the noise they make when they rattle across it, scattering leftover pills into the floor. He sits back down. He takes another swig of the drink. He passes it back to Ronan and picks up the remote to the television.

Ronan takes a swig of the drink and cringes at its taste; it’s almost like rubbing alcohol. He watches as Kavinsky turns down the volume of the movie, then the brightness of the screen. “Hungover already?” Ronan teases, even though the way Kavinsky fidgets is starting to make him anxious.

Kavinsky rubs a hand over his face and groans. “I’m coming down,” he says. “I need another bump.”

He stands up and starts to walk away, but Ronan grabs him by his wrist. “Don’t,” he says.

Kavinsky tears his wrist away. “Why _the fuck_ not?” he asks harshly.

Ronan stares at him. He doesn’t have a good reason to say it. It’s not like this would be the first time that Kavinsky’s done hard drugs in front of him, and he’s never said anything about it before now. Still… “Just. Don’t.”

Kavinsky meets his eyes and his lip pulls into a sneer for a moment. But he doesn’t say anything. He just rolls his eyes toward the ceiling and snatches the drink from Ronan. He chugs a few gulps like it’s a soda, then lays down on the floor.

Ronan leans over in his seat so he can see Kavinsky. “What are you doing?”

Kavinsky groans and closes his eyes. “If you’re not going to let me have my coke, I’m at least going to come down easy.”

Ronan gives him a confused look. “What?”

“The chair is too soft,” Kavinsky says it in a stiff and drawn out way, like it should be more than obvious what he meant. “It feels like I’m sinking. Suffocating.”

“Oh,” Ronan says. He watches Kavinsky lie on the floor for a few seconds. His breath is so shallow that every other exhale makes him look like he might be dead. Ronan moves down onto the floor and sits beside him. “Sounds like shit,” he says and takes the bottle from Kavinsky.

Kavinsky doesn’t open his eyes or move at all. “Feels like shit,” he says after a moment.

“Then why do you do it?” Ronan asks.

Kavinsky’s lips twitch into a smile. “Because being high feels so damn good.”

Ronan purses his lips and sets the bottle between them. “That’s it?” he says.

“That’s it,” Kavinsky confirms, but it feels like he’s lying.

Ronan doesn’t push the issue. “Okay.”

For a minute, it seems like Kavinsky has fallen asleep, but then he says, “Do you want to know about the first time I did coke?”

Ronan turns to look at Kavinsky and sees that he’s still lying prone with his eyes closed, like a corpse. “No.”

Kavinsky continues anyway. “It was with Proko. The real Proko. Back in Jersey.”

“You said Proko wasn’t based on anyone,” Ronan says carefully.

Kavinsky chuckles and it comes out hoarse. “Yea. I lied.” He cracks open his eyes and looks at Ronan like he’s looking through a haze. “Does that piss you off?”

“No,” Ronan answers. “Who was he?”

“Someone my Dad hated.” Kavinsky says and closes his eyes. A pained look flickers across his face, but it quickly disappears.

Ronan thinks of staying quiet, letting the moment pass. Kavinsky’s probably so drunk that he won’t remember what they’re talking about if he just stays quiet long enough. Still, Ronan finds himself asking, “Why?”

Kavinsky opens his eyes and stares blankly at the ceiling. “Because he liked me.”

Ronan picks the bottle of liquor back up and takes another drink. “He liked you?”

“Nevermind, Doesn’t matter,” Kavinsky says, keeping his bloodshot eyes on the ceiling. “He’s dead now.”

Ronan doesn’t know what to say to that. He feels guilty for asking. “Fuck,” he murmurs.

Kavinsky smiles at that, but it doesn’t meet his eyes.

They go quiet again. After a while, Ronan looks over his shoulder at Kavinsky to make sure he’s still alive. His eyes catch on the way the moonlight from the window lays over him, bathing him in blue light. With his eyes open, he looks less like a corpse, but not any less sad. Ronan wonders if he’s always like this when he’s sober.

Kavinsky’s eyes cut toward Ronan. “Do you like the view?” he asks with a smirk.

Ronan startles, but does his best not to let it show. “Shut up,” he says and lies down next to Kavinsky.

Kavinsky turns his head toward Ronan and stares at him, like he’s trying to figure out how he got there.

“Like the view?” Ronan mocks.

Kavinsky’s quiet a little too long, then he says, “Yes.”

Ronan frowns, “K-“

“Shut up,” Kavinsky says and looks away from Ronan’s face. He props himself up on his side and looks toward Ronan’s wrist instead. He reaches out and pulls at the leather bracelets wrapped around it. “Are these mine?”

Ronan watches him work his fingers beneath the band of the first bracelet. “You can’t tell?” he asks.

Kavinsky purses his lips, then scrunches his nose. “They’re not mine.”

“No,” Ronan confirms. “They’re not.”

Kavinsky pushes his fingers under the second bracelet and the bands protest by cutting into Ronan’s wrist. “Do you still have them?”

“Yes,” Ronan answers and Kavinsky’s gaze flicks up to his eyes before flicking away again.

Kavinsky curls his fingers around the bands and pulls, making them cut and chafe against Ronan’s skin.

Ronan lets him for a minute, but it’s an irritating feeling. “Here,” he says and unties the bracelets. He expects Kavinsky to pick up the bracelets and look at them like blueprints for his next forgeries. Instead, Kavinsky slides two fingers along Ronan’s wrist, tracing the scars from when he’d almost bled out.

Kavinsky’s mouth twists into a frown as he presses into the raised skin. Ronan sees him open his mouth. He hesitates and shuts his mouth again.

It’s so uncharacteristic of him, that Ronan feels compelled to ask, “What?”

Kavinsky draws his index finger back over the scars and very carefully asks, “Did you want to die?”

Ronan gives him a confused look. “It wasn’t a suicide attempt.”  Kavinsky already knew that.

“Yea,” Kavinsky says and swallows. “But do you ever think about it? About dying?”

Ronan looks up at the ceiling. “Everyone thinks about dying.”

Kavinsky scoffs and his fingers stop moving on Ronan’s wrist. “You know what I mean.” He leaves his hand half wrapped around Ronan’s wrist, heavy and warm.

Ronan swallows. “Sometimes.” It’s the only thing he decides to say, but once the word leaves his mouth, it’s like every inky black thought he has comes leaking out with it. He doesn’t talk long, but It feels like he’s said too much.

Kavinsky leans over Ronan, planting one hand by his far shoulder so that he can look Ronan right in the eyes and say “I knew it.”

Ronan stares up at him, expecting to see mocking or disgust, but there’s nothing there. Finally, he asks: “Do you?”

“All the fucking time,” he says, sounding something between amused and solemn with a grin on his face. He reaches up with his free hand and puts it on Ronan’s chest, right above his heart. “Life’s a nightmare.” He says, curling his fingers into Ronan’s shirt.

“Not always,” Ronan says.

“Not always,” Kavinsky agrees, and Ronan doesn’t miss the way he looks at him, almost reverent.

Kavinsky pulls away and sits up. He reaches for the forgotten bottle of liquor. It’s only a quarter full. He looks back to Ronan, then drains the last of it.

Ronan sits up, too. “Gansey’s probably waiting up for me.”

Kavinsky snorts. “Tell him you’re not coming back tonight.”

Ronan gives him a look. “And I’ll stay here, instead?”

“Yes,” Kavinsky says. “I promise I won’t molest you in your sleep.”

Ronan rolls his eyes, but he pulls out his phone and texts Gansey anyway.


	11. Ash and Sinew VI

“Ugh,” Swan huffs, “Everybody’s pants are still on.”

“Damn,” Jiang sighs, “We all owe Proko then.”

“What?” Skov yells. “He didn’t even bet!”

Proko nods, “That means my bet defaults to no sex.”

“Since _when_ do we default bets?” Skov asks indignantly.

The boys break out into an argument and Kavinsky lifts his head from the floor. “I swear to God,” he starts, voice dripping venom. “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to fucking cut you.”

“Ooooh,” Swan says with mock-sympathy and walks over to Kavinsky’s side. “Sounds like someone’s hung over.”

Kavinsky swings his arm out and hits Swan’s ankle.

“Ow!” Swan yelps. “What a moody bitch!”

Kavinsky moves to swing again and Swan jumps back.

“Jesus Christ,” Skov says and rolls his eyes.

“Well,” Proko says and makes his way across the room to the fridge. “There’s an easy way to solve a hang over.” He takes a bottle from the fridge.

Skov sees the vodka bottle and grins. “Get. Drunk. Again!” he cheers.

Kavinsky props himself up on his elbows and gives Skov a dirty look. “Why are you so damn loud? You’re lucky you’re too far to hit.”  

 Skov gives him a sheepish look and takes a step back.

Proko hands Kavinsky the bottle, then walks around him to where Ronan is sprawled on the floor. “He sleeps like the dead,” Proko says and narrows his eyes at him.

“Yea he does,” Kavinsky says and reaches out to hit Ronan’s shoulder. “Hey, Lynch,” he says too loudly even for himself. “Get your ass up; you’re going to miss the funeral!”

Ronan swats blindly at Kavinsky’s hand, accidentally smashing their wrists together. “What funeral?” he asks and sits up to glare at them. “Who died?”

“Summer did!” Swan says miserably.

Ronan narrows his eyes at him. “What?”

“It’s the last day, you know,” Skov explains. “School starts tomorrow.”

“Yea,” Kavinsky says as he climbs to his feet. “So get your ass up; We’ve got to put this bitch to rest.”

Ronan picks up his leather bracelets from where they’re still laying on the floor. He looks at the group incredulously. “You’re going to party the day before school starts?”

Kavinsky rolls his eyes and holds out the Vodka for Ronan. “This isn’t a party,” he says. “It’s a goddamn funeral.”

 

Ronan’s not surprised at all that the “funeral” turns out to be just another excuse to drink and destroy things. They head out to the fairgrounds with bottles clinking in the back of every car. Kavinsky’s got fireworks, pipebombs, and gasoline in his trunk.

They roll to a stop in front of what’s left of the hundred Mitsubishi Evo’s that Kavinsky had dreamed up. “Who wants to do the Eulogy?” Skov asks and walks up to one of the Evo’s.

Swan closes the door to his golf. “I’ll do it,” he says and climbs onto the hood of the Evo Skov had walked up to. “Let’s see. What’s that show say? A hundred and four days of summer vacation? Seems like five days.”

“That’s ‘cuz you blacked out the other ninety-nine!” Jiang yells.

The group snickers.

Swan points to him. “You shut your whore mouth; you got drunk off cherry schnapps last night.”

“Hey!” Jiang protests. “I told you I think it was spiked.”

Prokopenko snorts, “Yea? You got roofied?”

Jiang flusters and glares at him. “No, that’s not-“

Swan clears his throat. “I’m not fucking done, okay.”

Kavinsky leans against the Evo he drove there and opens a can of beer. “You better get going; I’m getting bored.”

“We should just start the fire,” Skov offers.

Swan snaps his fingers. “Goddamnit, I’m talking.”

“Yea, we hear you yapping,” Prokopenko says. 

Swan grits his teeth. “Skov, give me a bottle; I’m going to break it over this asshole’s head.”

“You can’t reach my head,” Prokopenko counters.

Swan grins. “Never said which head.”

“Oh, damn,” Jiang says in delight.

“Hope you’re wearing a jock,” Skov says.

Ronan gives Kavinsky a withering look. It seems like every time Kavinsky’s friends are together everything turns into a fight or a competition. Always someone baiting, always someone chomping at the bit. “Is this it?” he asks distastefully.

Kavinsky tilts his head toward Ronan. “What? Not fancy enough for you? Do you need us to make some finger sandwiches and talk about ye olde dead dude?”

“No,” Ronan says, barely avoiding a sneer.

Kavinsky opens the back door of the Evo and pulls out another can of beer. “Here, Princess,” he says. “Try to enjoy yourself.”

Ronan takes the beer and chugs it.

“Good boy,” Kavinsky smiles and gets him another one.

“Say that again,” Ronan starts, “And I’ll tear you apart.”

Kavinsky whistles low, “I dare you to, Lynch.”

The sun glints across Kavinsky’s shades and Ronan wants to take them off and throw them into the underbrush. “Fuck you,” he mumbles and raises the beer to his lips.

Kavinsky smirks. “Like I said-“ he starts, but a yelp from his gang distracts them.

They look up to see Swan on the ground, flat on his ass, and Skov laughing so hard he can’t breathe.

“Shit, did you see his face?” Jiang calls to them.

Swan gets up from the ground and tackles Jiang.

Kavinsky gets the gasoline from the trunk of the car. “Hey,” he whistles at them, and- like dogs- they stop to listen. “Let’s light it up before the other mourners get here.” He tosses the canister to Prokopenko. He doesn’t even flinch as he catches it.

“The others?” Ronan raises an eyebrow.

Kavinsky snorts. “Did you think it’d be just us? That’d be a shitty funeral.”

Ronan rolls his eyes. “Just call it a party already.”

“I’m just trying to be thematic, you shit.” Kavinsky pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lights one. “God, Lynch, why don’t you take the stick out of your ass.”

Ronan glares at him and finishes off his second can of beer. “I can always leave.”

“Yea,” Kavinsky says. “You could.”

It sounds like a challenge and Ronan grits his teeth. He thinks of the night before and the cold, blue moonlight cutting Kavinsky to pieces as he whispers _all the fucking time._ “You’re an ass,” Ronan says, but he doesn’t walk away.

Kavinsky’s brows go up in surprise.

 

From then on, Ronan’s hands are never empty. Once he finishes one drink, Kavinsky hands him another. Each one comes with a quip from Kavinsky, but the exchange always seems desperate, like Kavinsky thinks the beer is the only thing keeping Ronan there.

Ronan’s fine with that. He wouldn’t want to admit why he’s staying, anyway. The beer isn’t doing its job, though. Sure, his thoughts are looser and a little more honest, but beer has never gotten him drunk except in dangerous quantities. He wishes there were dark liquor nearby, maybe rum or bourbon. He could probably find some if he tried. There had to be close to a hundred people at the fairgrounds now, and everyone had brought something.

Still, he stays on the hood of the Evo with Kavinsky never far from him. He drums his fingers across the hood as Kavinsky leans over it with his nose pointed at a crushed blue pill.

“Do you even know what that is?” Ronan asks.

Kavinsky looks up with a shit-eating grin. “I don’t need to.” He ducks down to snort the powder and comes up wiping his hand against the side of his nose. “I’ve got extra,” he says and plants his hand against his pants pocket.

Ronan’s lip curls in disgust. “No.”

“Damn,” Kavinsky says, “You’re such a fucking prude.” He hops up onto the hood of the Evo beside Ronan. “And at such a banging party, too,” he adds wistfully and looks up toward the star-speckled sky.

Ronan snorts. “It’s a shit party.”

Kavinsky actually looks offended at that. “Shut the fuck up; there’s everything anyone could want here.” He leans back on his hands. “’S not my fault Third’s got you too scared to live a little.”

Ronan opens his mouth to snap an insult at Kavinsky, but Skov comes running up to them.

“Hey, Lynch,” he says and plants his hands on the hood between them. “I need your help.”

“What?” Ronan’s thoughts immediately turn towards nightmares and serial killers and _God_ what if these assholes have actually killed someone?

“Jiang’s being a douche,” he explains, still just as serious. “You’ve got to come put him in his place.”

Ronan gives him a look like he’s the dumbest person on earth. “ _Why_ would I do that?”

“Because,” Skov says and it sounds like a whine. “Remember you took down Swan and me a few weeks ago? You’re the only one qualified to kick his ass!”

Ronan’s memory of that fight was hazy.

 “Come on, man,” Skov pleads. “It’ll take like ten minutes, tops. It’ll be quick! It’s okay if it’s quick, right?” he looks away from Ronan to Kavinsky instead, like he’s asking permission to take Ronan away.

That look sparks a fire in Ronan’s chest. “Where’s he at?” he asks.

Skov turns back to him with an excited grin and shouts, “This way, this way!” he urges and starts off before Ronan is off the hood of the car.

They walk for a few minutes, each step bringing them closer to the heart of the party. The throng of people near the fire is thick and the sound of the music rigged up to the fairground’s PA system seems louder once they break the crowd and find the other members of the pack drinking at the fire, their feet kicked up on crates.

The calmness of it seems out of place in the middle of the party. It makes Ronan uneasy. His brow furrows and he looks to Skov for an explanation.

Skov looks back at him with a toothy grin. “Oops,” he says cheekily. “I might’ve lied to you.” He claps Ronan on the shoulder and moves toward an empty crate.

Ronan’s lips draw back into a snarl, immediately putting him on the defense. “You better have a good damn reason for that.”

“Calm down, Lynch,” Swan says, voice level and even for the first time since Ronan had met him. “We just wanted you away from K.”

Ronan give him a withering look. He does not relax. “Why?”

Prokopenko sits up straighter and turns his full attention to Ronan like he’s been waiting for the question. “You don’t belong here, Lynch.”

Ronan stares him down. “And here I thought we were having a good time.”

“It’s been fun,” Skov says with a shrug. “But schools starts tomorrow…”

Ronan laughs, and it’s a sharp, crude sound that would have made most people flinch.

The pack stares back at him unfazed.

“School starts tomorrow,” Ronan repeats, then throws his hands up in a violent shrug. “So what?”

Jiang meets his eyes and holds his gaze. “You’re running out your welcome.”

“Last I checked,” Ronan hisses, “None of _you_ were running this dog and pony show, and _I_ was invited.”

There’s silence as the pack looks at him.

Finally, Swan deflates and all the seriousness in him disappears. “You’ve got to ask yourself, man,” he gestures broadly at Ronan. “What are you doing here?”

“Try listening,” Ronan snaps. “I was invited.”

“Yea,” Swan says with a long-suffering sigh. “You were invited, but why did you come? Why do you keep showing up?”

Ronan stays silent at that. He could say the deal. He could say to keep an eye on Kavinsky. He could say a couple different things but any half-truth would be so far from reality, it might as well be a whole lie.

Swan takes a sip from the bottle of bourbon he’s drinking and squints at Ronan like an honor student doing a vivisection. “K is all encompassing,” he says carefully. “If you don’t know who you are going in, you won’t be the same person coming out.”

“What kind of fortune-cookie fucking bullshit is that?” Ronan asks and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I know who I am.”

“Do you?” Jiang asks. “Seems to me like you’ve been circling all-encompassing figures since birth.”

“Yea, and what the fuck would you know?” Ronan growls.

“More than you’d think,” Jiang snaps.

“How about this,” Skov says. “Ask yourself why you didn’t come to our parties before this summer. Ask yourself why you don’t smoke cigarettes and why you don’t do drugs with us. Then, ask yourself why you hated K so much.”

“I didn’t hate him,” Ronan says, his aggressive posture finally deflating some.

Swan stands up, bourbon still in his hand. He walks into Ronan’s space, then leans close to his face and hisses. “Then ask yourself why it matters so much that you don’t hate him.” He steps back and shoves the bourbon against Ronan’s chest. “I know you’ve got some brain cells rattling around in there.”

Ronan grabs the bottle, fingers twisting tight around its neck. “You need to watch what you say.”

Swan gives him a weary look. “Make me, Lynch,” he says flippantly and walks past Ronan, back into the party.

The rest of the pack drinks from their own cans and bottles as they watch Swan leave. One by one, the rest of them finish their drinks, toss the container into the fire, and disappear into the crowd.

Skov’s the last to leave. He stops next to Ronan on his way out and pats his shoulder. “Drink up, Lynch,” He says softly, giving him a sympathetic look. “Maybe try to meet some new friends.”

Ronan stands near the bonfire with the bottle and watches the rest of the party happen around him. He mostly sips the drink and waits. He’s not sure what he’s waiting for, only that it doesn’t happen. Maybe he’s looking for some meaning to the yelling around him, maybe some purpose to the fights on the outskirts of fairgrounds. Maybe he’s trying not to answer the questions that the pack had asked him.

The aimlessness of it all hits him hard and he feels a familiar burning start up in his chest. The whole world could be on fire and no one would notice so long as the liquor was strong enough and the music was loud enough. Did he really want to be a part of this? Something twists inside him. He sets the bottle down and starts toward his car.

He finds Kavinsky pinned up against the passenger side of his car with a girl leaning heavily aginst him. Their hands are everywhere, though Kavinsky’s seem to be moving much less vigorously.

“What the fuck?” Ronan growls. “Get off my car!”

Neither of them pays any attention to him. The girl presses closer to Kavinsky, sliding her hand between his legs, and he drops his head against her shoulder.

“Jesus,” Ronan swears and pulls the girl off of Kavinsky.

She finally looks to him, expression comically surprised. Her pupils are blown wide and her face is beet red. He’d bet anything that she’d taken at least a few of the mystery drugs floating around the party. She tilts her head to the side and bites her lip. “Don’t worry,” she says with a slew of giggles. “You can have a turn, too.”

Ronan scrunches his nose in disgust. “No.”

She huffs and stomps her foot, but she’s over it quickly.

She turns back to Kavinsky and Ronan grabs her by the shoulder before she can latch onto him again. “That means _this_ is over.”

She whines. “But, K-”

Kavinsky looks to her from where he’s been staring listlessly at the sky. “What?”

She throws her hands in the air in defeat and sashays away with so much hip-switching that Ronan wonders how she doesn’t trip over her heels.

“ _Christ,_ Lynch,” Kavinsky says. “Do you have to be such a cock block?”

Ronan snorts. “You don’t even like girls.”

Kavinsky shakes his head and leans against the BMW. His pupils are pinpoints in his eyes and it looks like it takes most of his energy just to stay standing. “Who the fuck told you that?”

Ronan raises an eyebrow. “Do you?”

Kavinsky barks a laugh. “What do you care?”

Ronan scowls. “I don’t.”

“Oh. My. _God_.” Kavinsky groans and his head lulls back, thumping softly against the car door.

Ronan rolls his eyes. “Get off my car.”

“No.” Kavinsky says and meets Ronan’s glare with a smirk.

“Get off,” Ronan says.

Kavinsky’s smirk grows into a grin and he presses himself closer to the car. “Make me.”

Ronan grabs his shoulder and wrenches him away from the car.

Kavinsky stumbles a few feet, but somehow stays upright. He laughs and turns back to Ronan. “You’re such a fucking prick.”

“Whatever,” Ronan says and stomps to the driver’s side.

“Hey!” Kavinsky follows him.

Ronan pulls the door open. “I’m leaving.”

“Wait,” Kavinsky orders, and when Ronan doesn’t listen like one of his good, little dogs, he grabs him by the back of his shirt and jerks him away from the car. “Listen, I’ve got a question for you, Lynch.”

Ronan turns to bear his teeth at Kavinsky, “Keep your hands off of me.”

“No,” Kavinsky grabs his shirt again and presses Ronan back against the car. “I said I’ve got a question for you.”

Ronan grabs Kavinsky’s wrist and digs his nails into it. “Whatever you took must have put you out of your goddamned mind,” he hisses and tears Kavinsky’s hand from his shirt. “You don’t get to push me around. You don’t get to _demand_ things from me. I’m tired of questions, and I’m _not_ one of your dogs.”

Kavinsky sneers. “No,” he agrees. “You’re one of _Third’s_.”

Something about the way that he says it makes Ronan snap. He swings a fist at Kavinsky and hits him square in the jaw.

Kavinsky staggers. He laughs and he rubs the side of his jaw like it doesn’t even hurt. The lopsided grin he turns on Ronan makes him want to hit Kavinsky again.

Kavinsky beats him to it and sucker-punches him in the gut.

“I don’t fucking get you, Lynch,” Kavinsky sighs as Ronan tries to catch his breath. “You’ve got people here that know what’s up, but you’d rather hang out with those clueless assholes.” He gestures broadly. “Like that shit last night. You ever told that to Dick? How about the trailer trash? They don’t care about you right now. Even _I_ can see that. Even _I_ know that they’re just waiting on you to snap back to that baby-faced, daddy’s boy you were before shit hit the fan.”

Ronan lunges at him and knocks him to the ground. “What do you know about that?” Ronan growls and pins him to the ground. Kavinsky opens his mouth to say something, but Ronan grinds his knee into Kavinsky’s hip. “Shut up,” he orders. “You don’t know shit.”

“I know more than they do,” Kavinsky taunts.

Ronan narrows his eyes at him. “The fuck you do.”

Kavinsky laughs and reaches up.

Ronan snatches his hand by the wrist and slams it into the ground.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Kavinsky snarls and flexes his hand in Ronan’s grip. “I wasn’t going to fucking hit you.”

“What were you going to do, then?” Ronan challenges, chest still heaving with rage.

Kavinsky snorts. “Same thing I was going to do the last time we were in your car together.”

Ronan’s brow furrows. The anger shrinks away, giving room to confusion and caution instead. “At the fairgrounds?”

“Where else, idiot?” Kavinsky says and rolls his eyes.

Ronan remembers Kavinsky hovering above him at the fairgrounds. If Ronan hadn’t woke up in time to hold out a hand and stop him, he would have stolen a kiss. He can feel Kavinsky’s heartbeat in his wrist, quick and unsteady just like it was last time.

“Come on, Lynch,” Kavinsky says and squirms uncomfortably. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel anything. I can see through you. I know.”

A chill runs down Ronan’s spine. His grip on Kavinsky’s wrist loosens and he sighs. “What do you want from me, K?”

Kavinsky meets Ronan’s eyes and answers the only way that Kavinsky can answer: “Everything.”

“No.” Ronan shakes his head.

“ _Yes_ ,” Kavinsky urges and reaches out to put a hand on the back of Ronan’s neck. “Everything.” He says again, but this time it sounds more like _anything_ and Ronan lets those warm fingers pull his head down.

It feels like a lightening strike with their lips meet. It’s quick and terrifying, and when they pull apart Ronan can hear his heart thundering in his ears. He plants his hand on Kavinsky’s chest and feels his heart beating just the same, and that’s enough to convince him to do it again.

Kavinsky kisses Ronan like he’s been suffocating. His hands find Ronan’s sides and he breathes into him like this is the last breath he’ll ever take. His fingers slip under Ronan’s shirt and he tries to get more than Ronan’s willing to give, so Ronan pins his wrists again.

“Fuuuuck,” Kavinsky gasps as they pull apart. He tilts his head back against the ground and tries to catch his breath again.

Ronan smirks at his exposed throat and leans down to bite it.

Kavinsky yelps. “Damn, Lynch,” he murmurs. “Are you a fucking vampire or what?”

Ronan laughs at that. The kiss has stoked the fire in his chest and it feels like smoke is filling the empty space where his lungs used to be. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” Kavinsky says. “God, no.”

Ronan goes back to biting Kavinsky.

This is too far- Ronan _knows_ it’s too far- but his hands leave Kavinsky’s wrists and find their way underneath his tank top.

There’s a restless energy zinging through his bones, refusing to let him stop for even a moment. His fingers skitter up Kavinsky’s body, feeling the ribs too close to the surface and the scattered scars in between them. He runs his fingers back down his ribs, and Kavinsky arches into him.

Ronan puts a hand on his hips and pushes him back down.

Kavinsky starts to laugh.

“What?” Ronan asks and pulls away from the mark he’s leaving on Kavinsky’s neck.

He rolls his hips against Ronan’s hand and laughs again. “I can’t get hard,” he says with a dopey smile. “I finally get you to stop fucking around and I can’t get hard.”

Ronan snorts. “Who said I was going to fuck you, anyway?”

“Who said you’d be doing the fucking,” Kavinsky challenges. 

Ronan raises his eyebrows at Kavinsky. “Are you saying you wouldn’t let me?”

“Don’t be a bitch, Lynch,” he says, though it doesn’t come out with the usual spite.

It almost sounds affectionate.

A sharp whistle catches their attention.

“Not exactly what we were expecting,” Skov laughs. “But it looks like Jiang owes me money after all.”

Ronan pulls away immediately.

Skov looks over his shoulder, “Guys! Guess who I found!”

“Skov,” Kavinsky growls and the glare he gives him looks deadly. “Fuck. off.”

Skov’s eyes widen as he realizes the mistake he’s made, and he starts to back away. It doesn’t matter. It’s too late.

Ronan’s already made his way back to the BMW. With his hand on the door handle, he looks back to Kavinsky. He expects to see Kavinsky coming after him, but Kavinsky’s still on the ground, looking at Ronan like he expects him to come back and finish what they’d started.

It’s too much, though.

The lightening has faded from his bones and all his edges have been singed.

When he climbs into the car and drives away, he can see Kavinsky looking scorched in the rear view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Everyone. I'm sorry I disappeared. Unfortunately I'm not necessarily back. These last couple of months have been incredibly difficult for myself and my family and we're not quite out of the woods yet. Things are better, so I'm working on this story again, but I fear a consistent positing schedule is not quite ready yet and I will be putting it on semi-hiatus.
> 
> I wrote and rewrote this chapter several times. I knew where is was going and a few key things that needed to happen, but the rest of it was a blur. I finally got it somewhere I was content with, though, and the ending is probably well-awaited, if not a bit bitter sweet. I'm super excited to get to work on the next couple of chapters because the story starts to shift a bit.

**Author's Note:**

> Please strap in for a hot mess. I've been working on this off and on for almost 2 years now. I've worked linearly and nonlinearly. I've rebooted it 3 times. I've edited plot points out and back in again. And it's still not completely finished. However, I stopped actively working on it in November 2017 and have only done 500 words and mass editing since then. But I've thought about it pretty much everyday, so I figure maybe posting will help push me to finish it. 
> 
> I'm going to update on the 1st and 15th of each month.
> 
> Shout out to the song "The Hollow" by A Perfect Circle for providing me mood music for the description.


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